


Camp Xavier

by captainpeggy



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2018-11-02 09:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainpeggy/pseuds/captainpeggy
Summary: "Camp Xavier caters to each camper's individual, unique… skill. Like fishing! Or… ax wielding. And not telekinesis. Or anything."Work inspired by @pencilscratchins'x-men camp AU!





	1. Reunion

_INT. — AERIAL SHOT— ORDINARY SUMMER CAMP — MORNING_

_A blue sky stretches out across a beautiful pine forest, sun glinting off small square roofs between the trees. We pan across the scene, settling on a wide grassy field at the center of the camp: a flagpole rises proudly in the center, rings of campers of all ages surrounding it as the notes of the national anthem fill the air. At the top of the pole fly two flags: the stars and stripes, and below it, a bold golden X on a background of radiant blue._

_Zooming in, we begin to notice things out of place among the campers. Eyes glitter in unnatural colours, skin shimmers and segments almost like— could it be scales? The woman standing beside the flagpole’s hair drifts in a nonexistent breeze. A young girl, standing in the front row, twiddles what appears to be a length of ribbon between her fingers… but as we watch, the ribbon lengthens and twists freely around her hand, glowing in a pastel rainbow of light._

_One of the older boys in the back reaches out to poke another girl, but his hand goes right through her shoulder. He blinks in surprise, and the grass at his feet frosts over and crunches under his boots. The dark-haired young woman beside him elbows him in the side with a smirk, eyes flashing pink._

_The camera pans up to the sign above the dining hall, which proclaims proudly:_

_CAMP XAVIER_

_—_

They’d been driving about nine hours, and Kitty was getting antsy. The year away from camp had been rougher than usual: beyond the ordinary schoolwork and strained social life, there’d been a whole rash of anti-mutant campaigns in her town, and just a few weeks ago, she’d found one of their pamphlets laying on her mom’s bedside table. Camp had always been an oasis for Kitty, but this time, it was an escape in more ways than one.

“We’re almost there,” said her dad, glancing away from the road. “You excited?”

 _More than you know,_ she thought but didn’t say. “‘Course.”

“Mom and I’ll miss you,” he said, and Kitty almost believed him.

They drove in silence for the next few minutes, trees rolling away on both sides of the highway: Kitty fixed her gaze on the horizon, leaning forwards and tapping her fingers absentmindedly on the dashboard. A sign whizzed by on their right: _Camp Xavier, 5mi._

“Should be there in ten minutes or so,” muttered her dad to himself. Kitty ignored him and tried not to read between the lines. _Should be rid of her in ten minutes or so._

They pulled into the camp parking lot around three, and Kitty wordlessly went for the door, but her dad reached for her arm. “Kit.”

She stopped.

“Katherine,” he said, looking at her sadly. “You know I love you.”

_I wish I was easier to love._

“You’re my little girl, and you’ll always be that, no matter what. No matter what, you hear me?”

Kitty closed her eyes. “I love you too, Dad.”

“I’ve never cared who or what you are,” he murmured. “Because I know you’re my daughter, and that’s all that matters. And look, Kit, I don’t know anything about what’s going on with your mother, but I want to make sure you know that there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

_Don’t cry. Don’t cry._

She felt her dad reach out to take her into a hug, and she let him hold her for a moment before pulling away— but he just held her tighter, so she bit her lip and phased through his arms before she started bawling.

Her dad half-smiled. “Have a good summer, sweetheart. Do you need help with your bags?”

“I’m good,” she said, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. 

“Okay,” he replied. “Okay.”

Kitty reached for the door handle again and stepped out onto the hard-packed dirt, taking a deep breath of the cool air. _Okay._

_Okay._

_—_

“YOU KNOW,” Bobby shouted, “WHEN YOU SAID YOU COULD GIVE ME A RIDE TO CAMP, THIS WASN’T EXACTLY WHAT I’D IMAGINED!”

“WHAT?” shouted Warren, tilting left to avoid a goose. 

“I ASSUMED YOU HAD A CAR,” yelled Bobby louder. “YOU’RE RICH! RICH PEOPLE HAVE CARS!”

“THIS WAY’S GOT NO TRAFFIC JAMS,” Warren bellowed.

“THIS WAY’S GOING TO END WITH ME IMPALED ON A TREE AFTER YOU DROP ME!”

“DID YOU JUST ASK ME TO DROP YOU?”

“NO!”

“COOL,” said Warren, and let go of Bobby’s wrists.

Bobby stuck his hands out in a valiant attempt to catch himself before he hit the lake, but all he managed was a brief icy cloud and a tremendous splash. “FUCK!”

It only took a couple seconds to freeze over a chunk of the water so he could climb onto the ice, but it was more than enough time for his dignity to shrivel up and die. Bobby rolled out of the lake like a beached whale, flopping onto his back in the middle of the ice.

Warren landed lightly beside him. “Sorry, Bobby. I thought you said—”

Bobby froze up a snowball and hurled it at his friend’s face. 

— 

The two women sitting across the aisle of the train kept sneaking sideways glances at Kurt, then looking away just as fast every time he noticed. He hated that— if they were going to stare, then let them stare, but the pretense that they weren’t pissed him off.

“Take a photo,” snapped Rogue from beside him. “It’ll last longer.”

“It’s fine,” Kurt said. “Forget it.”

Rogue checked her watch. “We’ll be there in a couple minutes anyways.” She hefted her backpack on one shoulder.

The train pulled in on schedule, and Kurt and Rogue filed out into the bright sun with their bags, shielding their eyes from the sudden bright light. The women who’d been staring at Kurt marched off towards the bus stop, very pointedly not looking. He liked that even less.

“Kurt!” came a happy shout, and all of a sudden someone ran up and was hugging him: a mass of curly red hair obscured his vision. Head counselor Jean Grey smiled widely as she held him out at arm’s length. “I missed you! How’ve you been?”

“Just fine,” said Kurt. “Life goes on, and such.”

“God, you look so different! Did you cut your hair?”

Rogue waved half-heartedly. “Hi, Jean.”

“Oh my gosh,” Jean said, abandoning Kurt and holding her arms out for Rogue. “I swear you’ve grown since last year. I remember when you were just a little junior…”

“Careful,” warned Rogue as Jean hugged her. 

“I’ll be fine,” Jean laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Ah, I’m so excited you’re here! Xavier’s had me and Scott helping Logan with maintenance for the past three days, and… Well, you know I love Logan, but Scott’s a different story.”

Kurt snickered. “I can imagine.”

“So are we the first ones to show up?” Rogue asked, changing the subject. 

Jean nodded. “You two are the only ones coming on the train. Kitty’s getting driven, Jubilee’s hitching a ride with Laura and her aunt, Bobby and Warren are— well, knowing Bobby, he’s probably half-conscious and making bad jokes in a ditch somewhere, but they’ll turn up at some point. All the juniors are coming up tomorrow, and there’s two new seniors we’re going to pick up on the way.”

“Fresh blood? What’re they like?” 

Jean shrugged. “Illyana and Peter— the girl’s a teleporter, and the boy can turn himself into metal, or something. We’re going to keep him away from Camp Brotherhood.”

Kurt looked up, interested. “Another teleporter?”

“That’s what Xavier tells me,” said Jean. “But don’t worry. You’ll always be special.”

— 

“Summers!”

Scott poked his head up from behind the bunks. “What?”

Logan stood in the cabin doorway, gesturing to the floor. “Mud! You’re getting mud on my floors, Slim. _My_ floors.”

“It’s barely a speck,” protested Scott. “Here—” he brushed the dirt away. “All better.”

The stocky groundskeeper huffed. “Just take your boots off next time. Takes five seconds.”

“You didn’t seen to care when Jean tracked crud all over the girls’ cabins yesterday!”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Clean it up, Summers.”

Scott spread his arms incredulously. “I did! Look, you can’t even see it!”

“I can see it.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Do you _really_ want to argue with me?” Logan growled.

Scott pushed his red sunglasses further up on his nose. “No, _sir._ ”

— 

Jubilee bounced up and down excitedly as they pulled up the drive to camp. In the front seat, Laura’s aunt glanced in the rearview mirror. “You all right back there?”

“She’s fine,” said Laura, then to her friend: “I think you should try and calm down.”

“I can’t,” Jubilee giggled. “We’re going home!”

Laura glanced out the window. “Yeah.”

Jubilee sensed something was off. “What’s wrong, Laura?”

“Nothing. It’s just… this is your home more than mine, you know?” She waved her hands halfheartedly. “You’ve been going there so long, and I…”

“Come on,” Jubilee replied. “You’ll get to see Logan! You can’t tell me you aren’t looking forwards to that a _little._ ”

Laura sighed. “He’s more your dad than he is mine.”

“L, I know this is a radical statement, but guess what? People can have deep, meaningful bonds with _multiple others._ Logan loves you.”

“I guess it will be nice to see everyone again,” Laura conceded. “I wonder how Jean’s doing.”

“See? That’s the attitude!”

—

“Boys, girls, and everyone in between,” said Xavier, voice surprisingly loud across the the length of the dining hall, “it is my honor to welcome you all to another summer at camp.” He looked around the room, seeming to make eye contact with everyone at once: Kitty smiled. She’d always loved his opening speeches.

“Over the next few months, each of you will be challenged. You will learn to rely on yourselves and on each other, hone your skills and abilities, and push yourselves to reach goals beyond what you ever thought possible. Camp is a place to learn who you are and what you are capable of— and this one more so than most.”

Laura glanced up to where Logan stood by the door. He gave her a little wave and an even smaller grin, and something warm glowed to life in her chest.

“All of you are truly exceptional in more ways than one,” Xavier continued. “In the years since I founded this camp, I have seen dozens of young mutants grow up here, each of them flourishing into incredible, unique individuals. You all have potential. You all have power. You are capable of great things.”

Kurt watched Xavier intently, hanging onto every word. His tail twitched ever so slightly.

The elderly man took a deep breath, eyes crinkling at the corners. “And this summer, you will do them.”

Rogue adjusted her gloves, the ghost of a smile on her face.

At the back of the room, Scott elbowed Jean gently. “He’s still got it.”

“He’ll always have it,” whispered Jean. “He’s Charles Xavier.”

“Now,” said Xavier pleasantly, “it’s my pleasure to introduce our groundskeeper Logan, who will be going over some basic camp rules. I’m aware this is review for a great many of you, but we have several newcomers this year, and I believe even some of our camp veterans could do with a reminder.” He looked pointedly at a pink-haired boy in the front row. “ _Quentin.”_

The boy appeared delighted to have been singled out. “I’m going to burn down this camp and everything it stands for,” he declared, quite matter-of-factly. 

“Thank you, Quentin,” Xavier said. “Logan?”

Logan stepped up to the front of the dining hall. “All right. So it’s a new year, you’re full of potential, blah blah blah. Rule number one: no gum at camp. I don’t want to spend my days scraping it off furniture. I’ve got better things to do.”

There was a quiet _pop_ and everyone looked at Jubilee, whose innocent expression was clearly at odds with the pink bubblegum stuck to her face.

“Rule two: Anyone who vandalizes _anything_ is getting dangled headfirst down an outhouse hole.”

“Uh, we can’t do that,” said Scott from the back of the room. “Health and safety regulations.”

Logan glared at him. “Slim, do I look like I give a damn about health and safety regulations?”

Scott looked pleadingly at Jean, but she pretended not to notice.

“Rule number three. Bedtime is bedtime. Anyone out of bed after lights-out is on kitchen duty for a week, assuming you survive. This is a weird camp, so I wouldn’t bet on it. Rule four is the last one, and it’s simple: I’m God. Respect me. I know this place better than anyone and nothing goes on here without me knowing about it.”

Bobby elbowed Jubilee. “Jubes, you don’t think he knows about—”

“I think he probably does,” replied Jubilee.

Bobby glanced up to the front with newfound terror in his eyes.

“So that’s about it,” finished Logan. “Let’s go have a summer, and all that.”

Cheers went up around the room, and in her seat in the front corner, Kitty felt a wave of peace and happiness. She was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! Today's thing rec is "You're Welcome, Universe," by Whitney Gardner.


	2. New Blood

Illyana Rasputin had had a very long day at the end of a very long week in the middle of a very long year, and the last thing she needed was to be locked out of her cabin in a strange forest with her flashlight batteries dying and some _seriously_ creepy noises coming from the trees. She shook her flashlight angrily and was rewarded with a tiny flicker of light for her trouble— but it blinked out just as fast.

It had been stupid to leave dinner early, and Illyana felt idiotic as she wiggled the doorknob. _Yes, Yana. Brute force. Always the answer._

She could try and teleport in, but that ran the risk of dropping her off weeks in the past or future, and she didn’t feel like reappearing in mid-December. Stupid powers.

“Ugh,” she shouted in frustration. “UGH!”

Her yells echoed back at her, then faded to silence.

“Hey,” called someone from up the path. “Illyana, right?”

They were too far away for Illyana to make out any features, but she could see an occasional flash of light through the trees. “Yeah. Illyana.”

The lantern got closer, flickering ever-so-slightly as it glowed off the dirt of the path. A narrow-framed girl with russet-brown skin and a mass of curly dark hair swung the lantern from her hand. “Having trouble?”

Illyana nodded sheepishly. “I didn’t know they locked.”

“Oh, they don’t,” said the girl, climbing the steps to the cabin door. She smiled at Illyana and twisted the doorknob just so, and it swung open. “They’re just fussy.”

Illyana stuck her head into the room. “I don’t suppose you have an extra flashlight?”

“Yeah— dead batteries?” She headed over to a bunk by the door and rummaged through her backpack to dig out a pocket-size lamp. “I’m Kitty, by the way.”

The cabin was a rustic affair, four bunk beds with drawers underneath and beat-up milk crates stacked against the walls to act as shelves. Illyana walked over to her bed and flopped down beside her duffel, staring at the graffiti on the bunk above. 

_ororo was here 2008_

_dr mccoy smels like wet dog_

_Jean + Scott 2010_ **→ __**_Forever !!_

_xavier’s rules brotherhood drools_

Kitty settled onto the bunk beside Illyana, pointing to the last one. “That was me. Last year we broke into Camp Brotherhood— they’re just up the road— and glued all their doors shut in the middle of the night. It was a wild ride. One of their junior counselors almost killed me with a deck of cards.”

“How?” asked Illyana.

“It’s complicated. Let’s just say we’re not the only mutant camp in this neck of the woods.”

“What?”

Kitty backtracked hastily. “Not that Brotherhood is really a _camp._ I’m 98% sure they don’t even own any of that land, and their mission statement is probably ‘let’s raise a little hell’. All they ever do is mess stuff up for us, but y’know, friendly rivalry and all that. And some of them are even vaguely attractive. Not that I care. Or even noticed.”

“Sounds fun,” Illyana said. “Maybe I’ll defect.”

“Please don’t,” replied Kitty. “You seem a little scary and I’d rather you be on our side.”

They contemplated the graffiti for a minute longer.

“You know,” Kitty said finally, “they’re doing corny icebreaker games back at the dining hall. Might be worth going.”

“I don’t think so,” said Illyana. 

“Come on. It’ll be fun.”

_—_

Kurt waved awkwardly. “Hi, I’m Kurt, my favourite ice cream flavour is chocolate, and I can teleport.” He turned to Rogue, who rolled her eyes. 

“I’m Rogue, I like mint chip, and weird stuff happens when I touch people.”

The next kid, an ebony-skinned girl in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, introduced herself as Idie with a smile. “I… well, it’s sort of complicated. I control temperatures, so I can make ice—”

“Nice,” remarked Bobby from across the circle.

“—or fire. Thermokinesis.” She pronounced every syllable of the last word very carefully. 

“Yikes.”

“Thank you, Idie,” Jean said. “I’m Jean, I love Rocky Road, and I’m telepathic and telekinetic. I’ve been coming here longer than anyone, ever since this camp was founded, so if you have any questions or anything you can always ask me!” She pulled a tennis ball out of her bag. “So for the next step of this game, what you do is say someone’s name and then throw the ball at them, and try to go as fast as you can, all right?” She glanced around the room. “Jubilee!”

Jubilee snagged the tennis ball and tossed it to a dark-haired girl across the circle. “Dani.”

Dani sent it over to Kurt, who batted it over to a boy with scaly lizard skin; from there it went to Bobby, then Illyana’s brother, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights as he tried to remember someone’s name. “Quentin?”

“Don’t sound so indecisive about it,” grumbled Quentin, tossing the ball back into the air. “Roberto.”

“Bobby’s fine,” said the kid as he caught it.

“It sure the heck is not,” said Bobby jokingly. “Please tell me you’re cool with Roberto, because I haven’t answered to Robert in years and I’m not keen on everyone calling me Bobby D for the rest of the summer.”

Roberto grinned. “I think I can make it work for your sake. Xi’an, right?” He lobbed the ball gently across the circle.

Illyana watched apprehensively from the door. “Kitty, I don’t think—”

Kitty grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her gently towards the circle. “You’ll be fine. Let’s do it.” She caught Jean’s eye and the head counselor waved and shuffled over to make room. “Looks like we have two new arrivals!”

Illyana settled down cross-legged between Jean and Kitty as Kitty introduced herself. “I’m Kitty, and I can, uh.” She wiggled her fingers and stuck her hand through the floorboards. “Phase!”

Everyone looked at Illyana expectantly.

“I’m Illyana,” she said, “and I can teleport. And sort of time-travel. While teleporting. To be honest, I don’t really understand either.”

“You can _time-travel_?” The lizard-skinned boy, who’d introduced himself as Victor, stared at her with wide eyes. “That’s so cool!”

“You’re a lizard,” said Illyana flatly. “That’s not?”

“Yeah, but _time travel!_ ”

Kitty hid her smirk behind her hand. 

“So, Illyana,” Jean explained, “We introduced ourselves and now we’re just playing a name game—”

“I think I get it,” said Illyana. “I’ll catch on.”

“Perfect.” Jean caught Xi’an’s eye. “Let’s go!”

The ball made it through a couple more circuits, a green blur in the air of the dining hall. “Sam.” “Kitty?” “Julian!” “Rogue.” “Illyana.”

Illyana caught the ball and looked around, finally passing the ball beside her. “Jean.”

“Perfect,” Jean smiled, levitating the ball a couple of inches above her hand. “Now with powers. Try not to burn the place down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was a short update but I have more coming!
> 
> This week's thing rec is the webcomic "As The Crow Flies". It's a sweet little comic about two kids struggling to fit in at a Christian summer camp.


	3. Scrambled Pancakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief cw for antisemetism in this chapter.

The next morning dawned cool, and Jubilee shivered in her bunk as the sound of a bugle echoed across camp. She’d packed mostly t-shirts and shorts— even after all these years at camp, she still forgot how cold it could get.

“What the _fuck_ is that noise?” mumbled Kitty sleepily below her. 

“Some parent kicked up a fuss about Jean waking everyone up telepathically,” said Rogue, already out of bed and pulling on a sweatshirt. “So apparently we’re doing reveille the old-fashioned way this year.”

“Reveille?”

“It means _wake-up._ ”

“Sounds French,” Kitty grumbled blearily into her pillow. “I don’t like French.”

“It’s a beautiful language,” said Rogue, sitting back down on her bed to tie her shoes. “Lots of history.”

Kitty rolled over and said blearily: “And Remy Lebeau is a beautiful boy, _non_?”

“Don’t you put words in my mouth,” Rogue replied. 

“Mmph,” said Kitty, burying her face in her pillow. 

Jubilee pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders as she sat up. “ _How_ are you this awake?”

“Remy skinny-dips off the Brotherhood docks in the mornings,” Kitty said, voice muffled. “Ow! Rogue, it’s too early for throwing things!”

On the other side of the room, Illyana was rubbing her eyes, blonde braid resting over one shoulder. “What time is it?”

Jubilee checked her watch. “Quarter after seven. How’d you sleep?”

Illyana looked surprised at the question. “Oh. I… good. Yeah. Really good.”

“It’s the air,” said Jubilee, waving a hand around to emphasize her point. “It’s clean. People always sleep well up here.”

“Who’s Remy?” asked Illyana, changing the subject.

Kitty stretched and answered for Jubilee. “Pretty-boy counselor at Camp Brotherhood. He’s only a year older than us, but Brotherhood’s never really valued maturity in its staff.”

“I thought you guys didn’t like Camp Brotherhood.”

“We don’t,” Kitty explained, “but, well, Rogue is _whipped—”_ She phased out of the way of Rogue’s hurled sneaker and it smacked against the wall behind her bed. “Come on, that’s only going to work once on me.”

They headed down for breakfast in a clump, wandering sleepily down the dirt path: Jubilee’s tie was held together with a sloppy granny knot, Kitty’s hair was a frizzy ebony cloud, and Illyana wore a baggy sweater over her uniform, but they made it to the dining hall just as Scott was reaching up to ring the meal-time bell.

“Where’s Rogue?” asked Illyana, looking around in confusion.

“I wasn’t joking about Remy skinny-dipping in the morning,” said Kitty with a smirk.

Jubilee _tsk_ ed and shook her head. “That girl is a mess.”

“Okay,” said Kitty accusatorily, “you were right out there with her last year. You don’t get to take the high ground.”

“That’s fair,” conceded Jubilee. 

“Girls!” bellowed Scott. “Line up!”

They filed into place on the far right of the dining hall steps: as one of the oldest cabins, they’d go in last. Kitty could remember back when there were only two cabins and everyone ate at the same table— she’d just been a kid then. Now the dining hall was the biggest building on the grounds, with dozens of tables and a common room off to one side. 

“What’s for breakfast?” Jubilee asked to nobody in particular.

“It’s a surprise,” said Jean from the porch.

“Scrambled eggs,” said Quentin.

“Morning, folks,” said activities director Ororo Munroe, joining the back of their cabin’s line. “First day of camp! Who’s excited?”

Jubilee pumped her fist. “I’m _so_ ready.”

“We’re running a whole bunch of fun stuff today,” Ororo replied. “I’m taking a whole gang out canoeing. Any of you interested?” She looked kindly around the group as the younger kids started filing into the building, settling on Illyana. “You’re the teleporter, right? Illyana! Is it your first year?”

Illyana nodded. “I’ve never been canoeing before, but it seems like fun.”

Jubilee gasped. “You’ve never been canoeing? Okay, well, we _have_ to go, then— sign us up, Stormy.”

The boys’ cabin in front of them headed into the dining hall, and Kitty bounced up and down impatiently as Ororo jotted down their names on a clipboard. “Just the two of you?” She finished with a flourish of the pen and looked up with a smile. “All right! Let’s go get some breakfast! Do you girls mind having some company at your table?”

“Not when it’s you,” replied Kitty sweetly. 

Their table was closest to the kitchen window, and Illyana settled into a chair on the opposite side: Ororo went up to get a tray of food and returned with a platter laden with soggy pancakes.

Jubilee narrowed her eyes. “Quire, you liar!”

Over the din of the dining hall, you could just barely make out a cackle from one of the boys’ tables.

“What’s going on with him, anyways?” Illyana asked, serving herself some pancakes and drizzling them with a healthy amount of maple syrup. “He’s so… cynical for a child.”

“Quentin’s only fourteen, but he’s a supergenius, so he thinks he’s, like, forty.” Kitty handed Jubilee the pitcher of apple juice. “He has deep-rooted self-esteem issues and a pathological fear of abandonment, so he projects his psychological distress outwards with an attempt at a bad-boy image and a generally destructive attitude.”

Jubilee blinked. “Who died and made you Freud?”

“Freud died in 1939, Jubes. Someone had to take over. Pass the syrup?”

Ororo obliged politely. “I thought Rogue was in your cabin. Did she not come back this year?”

“No, she’s— hey, speak of the devil,” said Jubilee, shuffling her chair over to make room. “How was the _bathroom_ , Rogue?”

Rogue straightened her tie as she sat down. “What? Oh, hi, Storm.”

“Good to see you, Rogue. Can I interest you in a paddle this morning? I hear they’re predicting lovely weather.” Ororo winked.

“I thought it was going to rain,” said Illyana.

“It’s always lovely weather when Stormy’s around,” Kitty replied. “I guess the gods just like her, or something.”

“Something like that,” agreed Ororo. “Rogue?”

Rogue shook her head. “Canoeing’s never been my cup a' tea, but thanks for asking. What else is running today?” She poured herself a bowl of Cheerios and grabbed a couple of orange slices from the plate.

Ororo checked her clipboard. “Xavier’s actually got a couple of other senior campers running activities for the younger ones— Bobby’s doing ice sculpting, and Kurt is leading archery. Besides that, there’s psychic defense training with Jean, Sean and Darwin are at Arts & Crafts, I’m canoeing in the morning and leading sailing in the after lunch, and— oh! I talked Logan into running a survival class this afternoon!”

“That sounds like fun,” replied Kitty. “Or… well, it definitely sounds like something.”

Jubilee pursed her lips and nodded. “I could go for Survival 101 with Wolverine.”

Illyana looked to Kitty. “Why do they call him that?”

“What, Wolverine?” Kitty snickered. “Because he’s short and angry and he has claws.”

“ _Claws?”_

“Just wait,” said Ororo, nodding in Logan’s direction. “He’s always grouchy at breakfast. They’ll pop out soon enough.”

Taking a sip of her juice, Jubilee tapped the table. “Place your bets on the victim. My money’s on Scott.”

“I’ll take that action,” declared Kitty. “What’s the wager? A chocolate bar at tuck time?”

“Sounds good,” said Jubilee. “I prefer Kit-Kats.”

“Is that some sort of joke, Jubes?”

“SUMMERS!” came a bellow from across the room.

Jubilee smirked and elbowed Illyana. “Watch this.”

_Snikt._

“No, Logan, I swear, I didn’t—”

“Slim, the only reason you’re not impaled onto the wall right now is because I don’t want to have to revarnish it!”

Kitty squinted in confusion. “What’d he _do?_ ”

“Existed, probably,” said Jubilee smugly. “If the tuck shop’s out of Kit-Kats, I’ll take M&Ms.”

Jean marched up to Logan and glared at him silently. Kitty had no doubt that she was giving him a telepathic piece of her mind, and considering that there were kids in the room, she supported Jean’s decision to keep it in their heads. Jean Grey could get surprisingly foulmouthed when provoked.

“Anyways,” Rogue remarked once everyone stopped staring and went back to their breakfast, “Ororo, how’ve you been? Did you have a good year?”

“Oh, fine. Saving the world, redirecting hurricanes, encountering tears in the fabric of reality.” She shrugged. “Pretty typical. You guys?”

Kitty pushed the last couple of scraps of pancake around her plate. “Well, my mother’s started reading anti-mutant propaganda, I flunked World History, and the only cute boy in my class turned out to think, quote, ‘ _the only thing worse than a Jew is a mutie’_ , so there’s something. In a nutshell? It fucking _sucked._ ”

Jubilee reached an arm out to give Kitty an awkward hug. “That’s awful, babe.”

“Yeah, well, I’m here now.” Kitty smiled sadly. “Free for two months. What about you, Rogue?”

“The usual,” Rogue shrugged. “Hitchhiking, sleeping in basements, flipping burgers and scrubbing floors for minimum wage. Living large.”

Ororo frowned. “Rogue, you know any of the staff here would be happy to take you in or help you find a steady job. You don’t have to—”

“Ah like it,” the girl replied. “Ah’m happy, ah really am. Ah don’t mind being alone.”

“But you don’t have to be,” said Ororo.

Rogue didn’t answer.

“I had a pretty good year,” Jubilee said to fill the silence. “As years go. My foster family’s pretty cool, and they’ve got a cute toddler, so I get to help out with him. Plus, I saw a lot of Laura.”

Kitty leaned forwards. “How is she? She’s, what, eleven now?”

“Twelve. She’s doing pretty good, all things considered. Miles better than last summer. I really do like her, you know. She’s a good kid.”

“I’m glad she’s got you,” said Ororo. 

“Well, I’m glad I’ve got her,” Jubilee said with a smile. “What about you, Illyana? How was your year?”

“It was…” Illyana sighed. “It was hellish.”

Kitty reached out and took Illyana’s hand from across the table. “Well, it’s over now,” she promised. Illyana’s hand was warm and Kitty half-expected her to pull away, but she just smiled slightly. “Thank God.”

“Oh,” said Ororo, looking up to the front of the room. “I think Scott wants to address the masses.”

Kitty took her hand back, only feeling a little ridiculous.

Scott’s glasses were slightly askew, but other than that, he looked no worse for wear from his encounter with Logan as he climbed up on a chair so everyone could see him. “All right! Can you all hear me okay? Great!”

“So I just wanted to go over how the day’s going to run for our new campers, and as review for some of our older ones who clearly need it—”

“Is this a callout?” muttered Quentin.

“— _who clearly need it._ As I’m sure you’ve all gathered, breakfast is at 8. Lunch is at 12 and dinner’s at 6. We usually sit in cabin groups but there’s no rules about it so long as you’re not too rowdy.

“Our activities director, Storm—” he pointed, and Ororo stood up and waved, “—has a whole bunch of great stuff planned out for the next two months. There’s always something going on here, so you’ll always be able to get in on one activity or another. Sometimes we’ll run special activities or classes, and for those you just need to sign up with the person who’s in charge. If you’re confused, you can just talk to me, Jean, or Ororo.

“Every evening after dinner we have evening program— tonight it’s an opening campfire, but we’ll give you more information on that at dinner. Now,” he checked his watch, “it’s just about time to head out and start the day! Make sure all your plates are stacked in the kitchen window, and wipe down your tables before you go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's thing rec is the TV show Elementary, which I can't believe I haven't recommended on here yet. I don't care if you're a die-hard BBC Sherlock fan or what, you've really got to watch this show. There's a genius trans woman (played by a trans actress!) who knits little tiny tortoise sweaters and Lucy Liu and I figure if that doesn't make you watch it then I guess nothing will.
> 
> Next up: Zen and the Art of Ice Sculpture! Bobby Drake, responsible for children!?


	4. Zen and the Art of Ice Sculpture

Bobby had set up shop down by the lakeshore with a whole bunch of the other kids, all of whom he’d set to hacking away at blocks of ice on the shoreline. Some of them were having more success than others: Laura had reduced hers to a bunch of ice chips in a matter of seconds, Idie was melting perfect little tunnels through the block and manipulating the top into turrets and tiny shingles, and Quentin was lying back on his like it was a La-Z-Boy. Bobby kicked the block and Quentin jolted upright. “Wha—”

“If you aren’t going to take this seriously, you can go hang out at A & C, you know.”

Quentin squinted at Bobby. “Where’s the jokester Iceman we all know and despise?”

“I don’t joke about ice,” said Bobby. “You should respect the materials.”

“God, what’d Ororo _do_ to you? Responsible Bobby sucks ass.” He grinned a Cheshire grin. “Of course, _regular_ Bobby—”

“Do _not_ finish that sentence,” Bobby warned. “Hey— Bo! Put that down! Who gave the six-year-old a blowtorch?”

The girl dropped it, startled. “Sorry…”

Bobby felt suddenly guilty. “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have snapped.” He knelt to scoop up the torch. “Do you want some help with your sculpture?”

She pointed to the misshapen icy lump. “It’s a bird.”

Bobby smiled. “It’s a very nice bird, Bo.”

“Is it a phoenix?” asked Quentin, still staring at the sky.

Bo looked confused. “A what?”

“Shut up, Quentin.” Bobby handed the girl a chisel. “Do you want to make some feathers?”

“Feathers are for flying,” said Bo. “Like birds.”

“Yeah! Feathers for your bird!”

“I like feathers,” Bo nodded, expression completely serious. “I will make feathers.” She walked up to her sculpture and started whacking at it. Behind her, Bobby tilted his head and pointed at the ice, shaping it into a perfect feather under the tool. Bo stopped, eyes wide, and pointed at it. “Bobby! Look what I did!”

Bobby grinned. “Beautiful.”

Idie’s voice came from high above them: “Bobby!”

He turned to see the girl perched on top of a ten-foot ice tower. “Idie, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Are you sure letting you be in charge of kids was a good idea?” mused Quentin.

Bobby sighed and ignored him. “Idie, that’s awesome, but if you slip and fall, Ororo will have my head. Can you come down?”

Idie rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stuck out her hand and melted a smooth slide down the side of her castle, climbing sandaled feet over the edge and slipping neatly down to the ground.

A little ways up the beach, Victor appeared to have completely abandoned his sculpture and was lying facedown in the sand. Bobby squinted at him. “Vic!”

The kid rolled over. “Yeah, Bobby?”

“Are you dead?”

“No,” he said. “I’m cold-blooded.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” called Bobby.

Victor rolled back over without answering. 

“Hey, Bobby,” came a voice from behind him. “How’s it going?”

Bobby turned to see Scott leaning against a tree with a smirk, glasses glinting in the sunlight. “Scott! Aren’t you supposed to be… counseling?”

Scott laughed. “The professor sent me to check on you. He says Quentin’s planning a mutiny.”

“What else is new?” Bobby glanced over his shoulder anyways. Quentin was still lying on his ice block. He looked surprisingly peaceful, but looks could be deceiving.

Scott changed the subject. “He also mentioned that he wants you to think about coming back as a counselor. Says you’ve been good with the kids the past few years, and I’m inclined to agree.”

There was a loud _snikt_ and somebody yelped. Bobby considered checking to make sure everyone’s organs were still inside their abdomens, but decided he didn’t want to know. “Why would Xavier want _me?_ I’m… me.”

“You’re good stuff, Bobby,” said Scott. “You try and hide it with all your bad jokes, but deep down you’ve got a heart of gold. Don’t be so scared of it.” He reached out and pounded Bobby on the back. “Think about it.”

Bobby watched him walk off up the path to the dining hall. 

_Man,_ said a voice in his head. _Don’t you think he’s kind of old for you?_

 _Fuck off, Quentin,_ he thought in the general direction of the boy.

_\--Nice ass, though, I’ll give you that._

_\--I don’t have a thing for Scott._

_\--You used to, though._

_\--Why are you in my head?_

_\--It’s okay, Bobby. We all get to be infatuated with our camp counselors. It’s a gay rite of passage._

_\--I’m not gay._

_\--Sure, and neither is Northstar._

_\--Look, my sexuality is none of your business. **Get out of my head.**_

\-- _Calm down, man. I’m in everybody’s heads._

Bobby squeezed his eyes shut and snapped his fingers. The ice block under Quentin cracked and shattered into pieces, dumping the kid unceremoniously on his butt. “Hey!”

Idie giggled. Even Laura cracked a smile.

 _\--Asshole moves warrant asshole responses,_ thought Bobby, and clapped his hands. “All right! Who wants to build a giant ice model of the Statue of Liberty so we can let it melt in a great show of dramatic irony?”

— 

The morning went by incredibly fast but somehow simultaneously felt like a year— days at camp always do. Illyana and Jubilee returned from canoeing soaking wet and laughing and Kitty tried _very_ hard not to notice the way Illyana’s shirt clung to her body as they lined up for lunch. It was remarkably difficult.

She was pretty when she smiled.

Lunch was burgers.

The sun was burning down overhead by the time they headed out for the afternoon. Off in the trees by the climbing wall, Jean Grey stood on a folding chair and addressed a clump of campers. “So, I see we’ve got a good turnout! It’s always nice to see people signing up for team-building— I know it’s no archery or kayaking, but I think we’re going to have a good time.” She gestured to the course around her: two wires stretched between trees a few feet off the ground, a wooden platform sitting on a log to make a giant seesaw, a ten-foot wall with a platform on the other side. “The goal of this is to have you all build trust in yourselves and each other— so we’re going to start with an old classic. How many of you have done trust falls before?”

A collective groan went up around the group. 

Jean grinned. “I’m assuming that means most of you! For those who haven’t, basically, one of you stands up on this chair, gets blindfolded, and falls off backwards, and another one of you catches them. It sounds simple, but it can actually be pretty scary.” She produced a bandana from her pocket. “Who’s first?”

Nobody raised their hand.

“Kitty!” declared Jean.

Kitty made a face but stepped gamely up to have the bandana tied over her eyes.Jean guided Kitty towards the chair and held her hand as she climbed up unsteadily. “Okay…”

“Perfect,” said Jean. 

“Who’s going to catch me?” asked Kitty, holding her hands out as if there was anything around to grab onto.

Jean didn’t answer, just gestured silently to Illyana to step up. Illyana pointed to herself incredulously, as if to say _me?_ but Jean just gestured more insistently until the girl came up behind the chair.

“Ready, Kitty?” Jean said.

“Who’s going to catch me?” Kitty repeated nervously.

“Do you trust the other campers here?” asked Jean.

“I guess...”

Jean started counting down. “On three? One, two—”

Illyana braced herself, expecting Kitty to phase right through her as she fell, but the other girl bit her lip, took a deep breath, and yelped as she fell solidly into Illyana’s arms. Illyana stumbled backwards from the weight but stayed upright, holding Kitty.

Kitty pulled off the blindfold. “Yana!”

Illyana stepped back and smiled slightly. “Got you.”

They looked at each other for a second before Jean clapped loudly. “Who’s next? Rahne?”

“Thanks,” said Kitty to Illyana, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear. The other girl shrugged. “It’s not like I was going to let you fall.”

“Still,” Kitty said. 

Illyana smiled ever-so-slightly. “You’re welcome.”

Jean tied the bandana over Rahne’s eyes and helped her onto the chair. “All good?”

“This makes me nervous,” said Rahne in her thick Scottish accent. Her hand twitched. “I don’t think you’d like me nervous.”

Kitty took a step back and Illyana followed suit. “What?” she whispered. “Is she some sort of Hulk?”

“Not exactly,” said Kitty. “But, you know, she’s young. Could you control your powers in middle school?”

“Fair point,” Illyana murmured.

The bell went for tuck time about an hour later, and Kurt and Jubilee met up with them in the line for the tuck shop: Jubilee was sporting an impressively red sunburn on her cheeks and nose. Kitty raised her eyebrows. “Scott lose his glasses?”

“Very funny,” huffed Jubilee. “I asked Rogue, and she said you aren’t properly tanning unless your entire body hurts. This is what I get for being trusting.”

“Tanning causes skin cancer,” said Kitty. “You’re better off not.”

“Hey, Jubilee,” Quentin chimed in from behind them in line. “Did you know if you say the word _gullible_ really slow, it sounds like _cucumber_?”

Jubilee frowned. “Gullllll-iiiiii-blllle. I don’t—”

Illyana snorted. 

“Oh, _fuck_ off, Quentin. Nobody invited you to this conversation. I see how it is! You guys think you’re real funny, don’t you.”

“Gimme your tie, Jubes,” said Bobby. He filled it with ice chips and knotted it into a makeshift icepack. “My mom would always put ice on sunburns. Don’t know if it did anything, but it always felt nice.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Jubilee smiled, holding the icepack up to her cheek. “Maybe I’ll split that chocolate bar Kitty’s buying me with you.”

“The _what_?” asked Kitty in mock surprise.

“You know,” said Jubilee cheerily. “Never bet against Jubilation Lee, kids!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up on Camp Xavier: Logan leads a gang of children into the wilderness and pretends he doesn't like being a father figure! Kitty thinks too much about Illyana! The camp gets some unexpected visitors! There is soggy pizza! Galactus eats Earth! (That last one was a lie. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)
> 
> This week's thing rec is X-Factor Vol. 3. I'm not saying any of them are going to make an appearance in this here fanfic... but it's never a bad idea to brush up on your mutant detectives.


	5. Ex-Husbands

There was an excellent turnout for Logan’s survival course that afternoon, comprising exactly three types of campers— the ones who were genuinely interested (Kurt), the ones who were only there because Logan was running it (Laura), and the ones who were there because everyone else was (Bobby). They met up by the flagpole, sun burning down from overhead: Jubilee had borrowed a frankly ridiculous hat with an eight-inch brim from Jean, and she kept shooting Rogue dirty looks.

“Okay, kids,” said Logan gruffly. “Let’s go.”

“I thought you were the groundskeeper,” muttered Bobby. “Shouldn’t this be run by a counselor?”

“Do you want to get mauled by a bear and bleed out a lonely crying teenager in the forest?” Logan inquired politely. “Because that’s what’s going to happen if you learn survival from Scott. What’s he going to teach you? Find water and build a signal fire?”

Laura raised her hand. “In a survival situation, those are exactly the two tasks which you should undertake first.”

“Thanks, darlin’,” grumbled Logan. He addressed the group. “Anyways. Do you want to go drink from some puddles, or do you want to learn how to kill monsters?”

“Touch them?” asked Rogue with a note of black humor in her voice.

Logan rubbed his forehead. “You’re very difficult.”

“We’re teenagers,” said Bobby. “What exactly did you expect?”

“This is the last time I do Ororo any favours,” Logan muttered. “Alright. We’re going.”

He marched off towards the woods, not seeming to care that nobody was following him. The campers stood in a clump for a minute, looking after him with mild confusion, before Jubilee broke off and ran after him. “Logan! Wait up!”

Illyana shrugged and strode off after them, followed by Kitty, then Bobby, pulling Rogue along behind him. Soon enough they’d all caught up and were tramping through the undergrowth in a rowdy bunch, sticks and leaves crunching under their boots. Kitty pulled up beside Illyana with an awkward laugh. “This is some experience, huh?”

“Logan seems nice,” said Illyana.

“He’s a good guy,” Kitty answered, sidestepping the point. “A solid quarter of the kids here are here because of him in one way or another. He was actually Jubilee’s foster dad for a few months last year.”

“Jubilee’s a foster kid?”

“We all have complicated family relationships,” admitted Kitty. “Nobody really talks about it.”

Illyana laughed bitterly. “Complicated. That’s one way to put it.”

“Look,” Kitty said, “my mom’s apparently joined the League for Mutant Eradication. Bobby’s parents kicked him out when he told them and then legally disowned him after he started coming here. Rogue almost killed her dad. Laura— I’m not even going to get into Laura. But the whole point of this is that none of that matters.” She flung her arms wide. “We’re each other’s family. And sure, we’re weird and broken and a little dysfunctional, but _what family isn’t_?”

There was a silence, and Kitty suddenly became acutely aware that they’d fallen back from the rest of the group.

“Nice speech,” said Illyana quietly.

Something flared in Kitty’s chest. “Can I hug you?” The words tripped and stumbled on the way out of her mouth.

Illyana didn’t say anything, just nodded almost imperceptibly, and Kitty reached out solid arms around her new friend and pulled her in tight. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. 

They stood there for a minute, just the two of them alone in the trees: shafts of light spiked intermittently through the canopy, speckling the ground around them with golden light. Kitty listened to a bird sing somewhere in the distance, chirping the rhythm of a cardinal, and breathed out a long, slow sigh.

“Ow,” yelped Illyana finally, jumping back and swatting at her neck. “Horsefly!”

Kitty laughed. The offending bug flew towards her, clearly staking out its next target, but she phased right through it and it buzzed off into the trees. “Perks of being a mutant.”

“When do I get bug-avoiding powers?” Illyana grumbled, rubbing the sore spot on her neck.

— 

The next few days passed uneventfully. Kitty and Rogue got to take turns leading activities along with Kurt, Bobby, and Jubilee: Quentin tried and failed to steal a boat, a squirrel broke into the girls’ cabin and ate Illyana’s toothpaste, and despite Ororo’s efforts, a few hours of torrential rain turned the fields into a series of small ponds. It was business as usual at Camp Xavier, until all of a sudden it wasn’t.

It happened at dinner. 

Kurt had settled down beside Rogue with a plate of pizza, Jubilee and Laura were laughing about something that happened earlier, and Kitty was watching the way the sun shone off Illyana’s hair when all of a sudden, apropos of nothing, every single piece of cutlery in the dining hall rose three feet off the ground and tumbled back down with a tremendous crash.

Illyana jumped up from her seat; Logan and Laura’s claws slid out with twin _snikts;_ Scott’s hand flew to his glasses; the water in Bobby’s cup froze over as his hands crackled and faded to blue. In seconds, everybody in the room was on high alert— everybody save one.

A hundred and ninety-eight pairs of eyes settled on Xavier, who tilted his head to one side with the ghost of a smile. “Alex!”

Scott’s brother poked his head out of the kitchen. “What was that, Xavier?”

“Get your crew working on some more pizza,” said the old man. “We’re having guests for dinner.”

Illyana turned to Kitty, breathing hard. “What the _hell_ was that?”

“Remember what I told you about Camp Brotherhood?” asked Kitty. 

“You mean one of _them_ did that?”

Kitty sighed. “Have you ever heard of Erik Lehnsherr? Max Eisenhardt? Either of those ring a bell?”

Illyana’s eyes widened. _“Magneto_? He’s a terrorist!”

“He’s… an extremist, but nobody can say he doesn’t care about mutants.” Kitty shrugged. “He and Charles used to be… well, something.”

“Something as in _what,_ exactly?”

“That’s a topic of debate,” said Bobby, sliding into a chair beside Kitty. “But the correct answer is _husbands,_ unless you’re Rogue, in which case it’s ‘best friends’.”

“She _gal-pal’d_ Charles and Erik?” asked Kitty incredulously. “He has a photo of them at the altar in his office!”

Bobby squinted at her. “What were you doing in Xavier’s office?”

Kitty froze with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. “Uh. Research?”

“She can walk through walls,” dismissed Illyana. “Of course she’s _going_ to. They were married? _Married_ married?”

Kitty’s stomach flipped. “Is that some kind of problem?”

Bobby watched Illyana intently, ignoring his pizza.

“God, no,” laughed Illyana. “It’s... ha. Definitely not. I’m just surprised. Xavier and _Magneto_? Charles seems like his polar opposite.”

Kitty let out a long breath. Illyana looked at her funny. “Are you all right?”

Bobby took the attention off Kitty. “Well, you know what they say is the first law of magnetism.” He smirked. “Opposites attract.” He tucked into his pizza and Kitty gulped down half a glass of water in one go.

At the other end of the room, Xavier raised his hand, and the dining hall fell silent instantly. He spoke quietly, but everyone heard him loud and clear. “For any of you who are still confused, we will be hosting a group from Camp Brotherhood for dinner this evening. They should be here in a few minutes.” Something sparkled in his eyes. “They will likely be rude to you. Take the high road and do not be rude back.”

A kid at the next table over from Kitty and Illyana rolled his eyes. “Goddamn high road.”

“Rictor,” said Xavier, “if you have something to say, do speak up so we can all hear you.”

“I love the high road,” Rictor replied. 

“That’s excellent to hear.”

Dani called out from a table by the window, ponytails resting over her shoulders. “What do they want?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” answered Xavier with a smile. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

The cutlery began to rattle again, crescendoing to a spectacular clatter: Kitty tried to grab her fork, but it quivered so fiercely in her hand that she had to drop it. At the front of the dining hall, the doors swung open wide, letting in the glow of the low sun.

“Hello, Charles,” said Magneto.

 _Drama queen,_ everyone in the room heard Jean think.

Erik struck an imposing figure as he strode into the dining hall, flanked on both sides by teenage campers and counselors: a silver-haired boy and disinterested-looking girl wearing matching aviators ambled along to his right, while to his left walked a young man with skin just half a shade too green and a girl with elaborate blonde braids. Kitty caught the eye of a short-haired girl at the next table over and thought _Who’s watching the rest of their kids?_

The girl shrugged. _Remy, maybe? It’s a mystery! Tune in next week to find out!_

“Why do you never have telepathic conversations with _me_?” complained Bobby under his breath.

“‘Cause you’re not a telepath,” Kitty muttered.

Magneto clapped his hands, and the cutlery stopped shaking. The whispers that had been sweeping the room died out, and he looked around with an expression somewhere between smugness and derision. “Well. Isn’t this a lovely gathering.”

Xavier wheeled up to him with half a smile on his face. “You’re quite welcome to join us for our evening meal. I’ve had the kitchen prepare extras… it was very considerate of you to call ahead.”

Erik inclined his head. “Thank you for that generous offer. We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to take you up on it.”

“No we wouldn’t,” grumbled the white-haired boy from behind his sunglasses.

“Pietro, if I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it.” To Xavier, again: “But that’s not why we came.”

Xavier raised a finger. “I assume you’ve come regarding some perceived slight against your dubiously legal establishment?”

“God,” grouched Bobby in a low voice, “they talk like they’re giving a college lecture. Kitty, if I ever get old and start talking to my husband like that, stick your hand through my skull and turn my brain into pulp.”

“No,” said Kitty. “What the hell, Drake?”

“I figured you’d say that.”

Back at the front of the dining hall, Magneto spread his arms wide. “As a matter of fact, I am. But it’s quite a lot bigger than my camp. Bigger than both of our camps, in fact.”

“Here we go,” said Rogue, settling into a seat at their table to get a better view of the fireworks. “What do you think the big put-aside-our-differences crisis will be this year? The League for Mutant Eradication? Gentrification? Capitalism?”

“My money’s on girls from Xavier’s sneaking over to peep on his camp counselors,” Bobby muttered.

“Oh, shut _up—_ ”

“Excuse me,” barked Magneto, lifting the cutlery again and spinning it so the forks all pointed at their table. “Show some respect.”

“Actually, perhaps we should discuss this _after_ dinner,” suggested Xavier hastily. “Erik, please stop pointing sharp objects at my campers… take a seat, please, all of you, anywhere you like… mutant culture will still be there to protect once we all have full stomachs…”

The green boy’s gaze flickered nervously between Xavier and Magneto, finally settling on the man in the wheelchair. “What’s dinner?”

“Pizza,” replied Xavier with a twinkle in his eye. “Care to stay?”

Magneto rolled his eyes. “Charles, you can’t _bribe_ them to postpone a chat about the fate of mutantkind!”

“What sort of pizza?” asked the girl with the sunglasses, expression still remarkably disinterested.

“Hawaiian or vegetarian,” called Alex from the kitchen. 

The girl turned back to Magneto and said, in the same bored tone: “Yes, he can. Pietro, where should we sit?”

Bobby elbowed Kitty in the side. “If nothing else, I don’t think dinner’s going to be boring.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! Thing rec of the week is the book Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard.
> 
> Coming up on Camp Xavier-- inter-camp drama! Mutantkind in crisis! Rogue tries and fails to knit!


	6. Not Boring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice long chapter today because I'm going to be away (working at camp, actually) all summer! Next chapter won't be up till September, so enjoy this one, folks, and don't forget to subscribe so you get notified when it goes up! :)

Illyana nibbled on a crust and glanced over to where the Camp Brotherhood delegation had settled in at a nearby table. “Does this happen a lot here?”

“What,” asked Rogue, “invasions of our space by supervillains? All the time, sugar. Whenever Magneto needs some extra kids to corrupt.”

“He’s not a _supervillain,_ ” defended Kitty around a mouthful of pizza. After their ‘guests’ had found seats, the volume in the dining hall had quickly risen back up in the way sound tends to in a room full of kids: Magneto’s presence did very little to curb the chatter, only to direct its topic. “He just wants what’s best for mutants. And you know what? I can’t blame him.”

Kurt appeared with a quiet _bamf_ and sat down in an empty seat, listening.

“You can’t deny he’s a terrorist,” pointed out Illyana. “He’s killed people.”

“But they’ve killed _us,_ ” Kurt chimed in. “I don’t think violence is the answer, but it’s hard to be angry at him for taking action.”

“That’s fair,” conceded Bobby. “Rogue, can you pass the ketchup?”

Kitty looked at him disdainfully. “You’re _not_ going to put that on your pizza.”

“You’re not my mom,” Bobby said jokingly as he drizzled his dinner generously. “Plus, if tomatoes are a fruit, ketchup is a smoothie, right?”

Kurt shook his head. “That is not how it works.”

“I think it _is_ ,” said Bobby, capping the ketchup and putting it back in the middle of the table. “Anyways. Back to Magneto. I can’t believe they really let him run a camp.”

Kitty looked at him with disbelief. “Bobby, it’s not _legal._ He’s wanted in, like, seven different countries, you think he got a _permit_?”

“He doesn’t need a permit,” said a new voice, making them jump. Beside lllyana, one of the Camp Brotherhood kids had materialized seemingly out of nowhere: the white-haired boy who the girl had called Pietro. “He’s got superpowers.” He reached out just a little too fast and stole a piece of Rogue’s pizza. “Remy says hello, by the way.”

“Where the hell’d you come from?” demanded Illyana. “How many teleporters are there on this damn lake?”

There was a split-second of wind strong enough to blow Bobby’s hair back, and when he blinked, everyone’s plates had been refilled and glasses topped up. Pietro smirked. “Not a teleporter. Just fast.”

“God, I hate speedsters,” grumbled Kitty. “Pietro, we’re under orders to be civil, so I’ll be civil. I believe you remember Bobby, Kurt, and Rogue: this is Illyana, she’s new. How’s your sister?”

“Oh, she’s fine,” began Pietro before Kitty cut him off. “Don’t speak, please. I’m making small talk because I respect Xavier’s wishes, not because I care. How are you dealing with the bugs?”

Pietro looked at Bobby mildly. “Am I just supposed to sit here in silence while she talks at me?”

Bobby shrugged and took a bite of his pizza.

On the other side of the room, the girl with the sunglasses sat at a table between Quentin and Jubilee, apparently oblivious to everything going on around her. Quentin stared at her intently, face screwed up in a mix of concentration and frustration.

Finally, he threw his hands up. “The hell’s going on?”

“Language,” said Scott.

Quentin poked the girl in the shoulder. “How are you blocking me? You’re not a telepath— I’d know if you were.”

“Maybe you aren’t one either,” said the girl, tone acidic. She pointed at Jubilee. “Tell me what she’s thinking, if you’re so clever.”

Quentin blinked, and a fearful expression flitted across his face. “What— Jubilee, what’s going on?”

“I’m not doing anything,” shrugged Jubilee. “What’s wrong?”

His gaze flew around the room, landing on person after person, mind still painfully blank. “I can’t read your mind! I can’t— I can’t read anyone’s!” 

“Good thing too,” muttered the girl. Jubilee smirked. She almost liked the newcomer.

Quentin grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “What did you _do_ to me?”

“Hey,” said the girl with a frown. “That’s not very polite.”

Suddenly Quentin was back in his seat, soaking wet: his water glass had been flipped over his head, and suddenly he realized _he_ was holding it upside-down atop his hair. He slammed it back on the table furiously. “What is this!? Are you telekinetic? A speedster? How are you _doing_ this?”

The girl shrugged. “Your labels are cute. Why be any of those things when I can just adjust reality so I don’t have to be?”

“I don’t like this,” muttered Quentin. “Or you. Give me my powers back.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea how,” said the girl. “Give it a couple hours. Maybe they’ll come back on their own. In the meantime, would you like some more pizza?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just snapped her fingers: a plate of New York deep-dish materialized in the middle of the table. “Eat up.”

“Now you’re just showing off, Wanda,” Pietro said flatly, appearing out of nowhere to grab a slice. He addressed Quentin: “But to be fair, you _did_ have it coming.”

“Whose side are you _on_?” demanded Wanda.

“I always did like playing for both teams,” Pietro replied with a wink at Quentin. “See you later, sis.”

There was a _whoosh_ and then both Pietro and the entire platter of pizza were gone. Quentin shook his head. “What the _hell_ is wrong with you people?”

“Language,” called Scott again.

“Hypocrite,” shouted Quentin, clearly annoyed.

Jubilee watched the scene with dramatically wide eyes, then turned very slowly back to her pizza. “Wow. This is awkward,” she proclaimed to nobody in particular.

Her hair was blown back by a sudden breeze. “You said it, not me,” said Pietro, shaking his head beside her.

“Where’d you _come_ from!?”

—

Dessert was pumpkin pie, and everyone’s appetite was ruined by the sight of Logan using his claws to dice his portion into bite-size pieces. The sun was going down— their unexpected guests’ arrival had delayed things by almost half an hour, and with the youngest kids needing to be in bed by nine, Scott and Jean were conferring nervously over the evening schedule, trying to figure out what they had to move to make room for Magneto’s big announcement.

The redheaded girl at the table across from Kitty narrated their thought process for all present. “Okay, Scott’s thinking we’ll need to allow at least forty minutes for him to drag things out with a big speech, then half an hour for everyone to freak out about whatever he says, and he figures they’ll stick around at least fifteen minutes after that… Wow, Jean’s saying we should budget two hours because— oh, get this! Because ‘Magneto and Company’ are a bunch of divas who’ll spend every possible second at the center of attention!” She laughed, then sucked in a sharp breath as her hands flew to her temples. “Ow!”

“Rachel, this is none of your business,” Jean barked, eyes flashing pink from across the room. “Go back to your pie.”

Rachel looked over to where Logan was impaling his pie chunks and biting them off his claws like they were fruit skewers. “No thanks.”

Jean waved her hand dismissively. “Butt out. You’re behaving like Quentin.”

“ _Wow,_ ” said Rachel. “That’s harsh.”

The greenish boy and blonde girl from earlier had migrated over to the clump of teenagers and settled into seats by Bobby and Kitty: Kitty ignored them, but Bobby was fascinated. “You’re new at Brotherhood this year, right? I don’t recognize you. What do they call you, man? Frog-dude?” He laughed, clearly very pleased with himself.

“Toad,” admitted the boy.

“ _Seriously?_ Well, you know what, toads are cool.” Bobby shoveled a forkful of pie into his mouth. “So what’s Magneto been telling you about us? That we’re evil incarnate and must be wiped out for the good of mutantkind?”

Toad shrugged. “Nah. Mostly just that you’re misguided, when he says anything at all. It’s not much of a camp, to be honest. Really just Magneto’s Club of Kids In The Forest.”

The blonde girl interjected. “I like it. We’re not told to _hold back,_ at least,” she said with a pointed look over to where Jean and Scott were still huddled over the schedule. “We really get to use our powers.”

“Hey,” said Kitty. “Learning to control our powers isn’t the same thing as holding ourselves back.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Sure. What’s your thing again, walking through walls? Obviously I wasn’t talking about you. There’s people here who could, like, actually change the world if they stopped repressing themselves?”

Kitty lunged forwards and phased her fork through the girl’s chest, tines extending straight out the other side. Everyone flinched except the girl, who held perfectly steady, not even trying to move. “That all you got? Really?”

“That fork is passing right through your aortic arch,” said Kitty flatly. “I can let go in a second and rip it to shreds. You’ll be dead in less than a minute. Still think I’m useless?”

“Kitty,” Bobby said, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder but deciding against it. “Chill before Jean notices.”

“Maybe I should stop _holding back,_ ” mused Kitty. “Just forget everything I know about control and really let it go. Where’ve I heard that bit of advice before?”

“Okay,” said the girl, finally having the decency to look at least a little nervous. “Point made. Can you take your fork out of my chest now?”

Kitty didn’t move.

Bobby grabbed her elbow and was relieved to find it solid as he pulled her back to her seat. “Take it down a notch, dude.”

“ _Thank_ you,” said the girl with an eye-roll. “God, at least _someone_ here has a whiff of common sense.”

“Hey,” said Bobby, pointing at her accusatorily. “I don’t like you either. I just don’t want any dead bodies at my dinner table.”

Kitty looked at her fork disdainfully. “I need a new one. It’s been tainted.”

“Okay,” Bobby sighed, “you’re the one who stabbed this chick. Go get your own fork.”

— 

_Wide shot of MAGNETO standing on the stage at the back of the Camp Xavier dining hall, striking an imposing figure despite his frankly dorky helmet and cape. JEAN and SCOTT sit to one side of the stage with apprehensive expressions on their faces, while XAVIER watches from his wheelchair to the other. The CAMPERS have been shepherded towards the stage and sit in a messy clump on the floor._

_BO walks up to ILLYANA and plunks herself down in the older girl’s lap with a gap-toothed grin. ILLYANA is taken aback by this sudden display of affection. BO takes her silence as approval and turns to watch MAGNETO with eyes wide._

_KITTY smirks from beside ILLYANA._

KITTY

_(whispering)_

I think she likes you.

ILLYANA

Why does she like me?

KITTY

I dunno. You’re likeable.

ILLYANA

Not really.

_MAGNETO clears his throat._

MAGNETO

_(with a slightly excessive dramatic edge)_

Mutants young and old, we are gathered here today to discuss a crisis like nothing seen before in history. I am honoured to have been given your time and attention and I promise you that by the end of this evening, you will understand why I interrupted your dinner.

QUENTIN

_(just a little too loud)_

Is it because you desperately need to be the center of attention?

_QUENTIN screws up his face and grabs his head in pain as XAVIER whips around to glare at him._

MAGNETO

_(ignoring the goings-on)_

As I’m sure you’re all well aware, we live in a world that hates and fears us, and would take any available chance to wipe us from the face of the Earth. 

JEAN

Okay, that’s debatable.

SCOTT

_(muttering)_

Don’t _interrupt_ , Jeanie.

LOGAN

Oh, what’s this? Trouble in paradise?

MAGNETO

Charles, _this_ is your camp? It’s gone downhill since last year. You’ve got no discipline whatsoever.

XAVIER

To be fair, what we _do_ have is a permit and legitimate legal ownership of this land. But carry on.

MAGNETO

_(huffs)_

Thank you, Charles.

_His audio becomes a voiceover as we cut to a dramatic shot of waves on the lake, the camera flying rapidly over the surface as if strapped to a plane. The distance to the other side passes in what seems like no time…_

MAGNETO (V.O.)

We’ve had our differences. But we have always had one thing in common: we are unique. We are different. We are the next step in evolution. We could reshape the world, create a utopia… but there are always those who oppose the rising of the downtrodden.

_On the other shore, we fly over modern-looking buildings surrounded by barbed wire, expensive machinery and vehicles, wide-open expanses of perfectly trimmed grass. It’s a camp, but not like any camp you’ve ever seen— indeed, it looks more like a military base than anywhere a child would feel at home._

MAGNETO (V.O.)

They say it’s not about us. They say it’s about defense, not attack; that we are safe as long as we pose no threat, as long as there are greater risks to be addressed. They fill their arsenals with nuclear warheads to keep peace, they say, and that’s what we want— is it not?

_Zooming through a window into a lab in one of the buildings, we focus on a boy who can’t be more than seventeen, tinkering with what looks like a robotic glove. Sparks fly as he takes a grinding tool to the palm, smoothing the rough edges of the metal._

MAGNETO (V.O.)

But warheads don’t care who they hit. And when they exist at all— well. There will always be a risk, and when there is a risk there is a chance, and when there is a chance there may be a massacre. Power like that cannot be allowed to be stolen, for it will inevitably be abused.

_The boy looks up as someone new enters the lab— a man in a long black coat and an eyepatch._

MAN

How’s it going, Tony?

_Cut to black._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's thing rec is We Are The Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson! Thank you for reading as always, and see you in two months! ;)


	7. Plots and Plans

from https://campshield.gov/faq/

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

_What is Camp SHIELD?_

Camp SHIELD is a new government-sponsored establishment for America’s best and brightest youth. We specialize in supporting gifted children and helping them achieve their dreams, from our advanced robotics and technology program to our intensive fitness and martial arts courses. 

_What military involvement is there in Camp SHIELD?_

Camp SHIELD works closely with the United States Department of Defence to involve young people in cutting-edge research, development, and training. It is important to emphasize that we are _not_ a military organization or cadet program— rather, we partner with the DOD to expand the opportunities we offer to participating youth.

_What are the facilities like?_

Participants have 24/7 access to state-of-the-art scientific equipment and laboratories, as well as to our world-class physical training facilities complete with simulative combat chambers and skilled coaches. Dormitories are comfortably large with four participants to a suite. 

Bobby flicked through the website nervously, looking over his shoulder every couple of seconds to check that nobody was approaching Xavier’s office. Kitty rested her hand on his shoulder in case they needed to make a quick getaway: her eyes scanned the screen of the old desktop, brow furrowed. “Magneto’s right. I don’t like this.”

“It’s just a camp, Kitty.” Bobby’s voice was uneasy, like he was trying to convince himself more than her. “Look, it’s not even a military establishment. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”

Kitty shook her head. “What kind of camp specializes in R&D and _combat training_? They might not call themselves that, but it sounds pretty damn military to me.”

Bobby sighed. “I don’t know. You’re right. Whatever. Is there any point worrying about it, though? What can we do?”

The ancient computer screen buzzed softly as Kitty squinted at it, then pointed to the top corner, the seeds of a plan forming in her mind. “Click that.”

The cursor hovered over _Gallery & Facility Maps. _

Kitty reached over and flicked on the printer.

— 

“You want to _what!?”_

“Shhhhh,” said Bobby. “It’s not trespassing, it’s reconnaissance. We’ll just go in, poke around, and get out before anyone knows we were there. Easy!”

Kurt looked horrified. “That is a government facility you’re talking about breaking into.”

“That’s why we need your help to do it. Kitty’s down and Rogue’s on board, so if you’re in, we can have a teleporter, a phaser, and someone who can do both. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

“And Rogue thinks she can pull it off without knocking me and Kitty out? She still has trouble controlling her powers.”

Bobby shrugged. “She said she could. But I mean, if you’re not up for the risk, I could always go talk to Illyana—”

Kurt closed his eyes. “You know I love Illyana, but you will wind up arriving two hundred years in the future when everyone in that place is long dead. She is more of a… a big-picture person. You need precision.”

“So are you in or not?” Bobby pressed.

“Fine,” Kurt sighed. “But only because I’m a bit perturbed by this whole thing as well.”

—

Kitty settled herself on a bench next to a clump of the junior campers, straightening her tie and glancing off in mock disinterest towards the lake. She figured it wouldn’t take long for the boy she was looking for to notice her, and she figured right.

“Hi, Kitty,” said Trevor Hawkins, blinking the eye in the back of his head. He didn’t bother turning around: he usually didn’t. They say you need eye contact to carry on a conversation, not face contact, and he wasn’t short on that.

“Hey, Trev,” Kitty replied. “Can I talk to you?”

Trevor scratched his ear carefully with an eyeball-tipped finger. “Sure. What’s up?”

“I need your help with something, actually.”

The kid shuffled over closer to her and finally turned to face her. “Is this about that other camp Magneto was talking about?”

Kitty was taken aback. “Yeah, it is. How’d you know?”

“I know lots of things,” Trevor said. The eyes on his cheekbones flitted furtively around, scanning their surroundings. Kitty was struck by an unnerving feeling that this ten-year-old could see right through her in every sense of the word.

“Well… we’re going to investigate. Me, Bobby, a couple of others. But we need a lookout.”

All fifty-six of Trevor’s eyes lit up. “Me? But it’s only my first year here!”

Kitty nodded. “I know. But if you want to, I think you can do it. You’re smarter than people give you credit for being. We’d be more than happy to have you along.”

“What if we get caught?” Trevor asked, tone equal parts excited and nervous.

“I don’t get caught,” said Kitty with a grin. “And you won’t either.”

—

That evening’s campfire was lit at 8:47 sharp: Logan had enlisted Idie’s help to build it, and the girl was extremely happy to be given such an important job. She took her duties very seriously, stacking wood up in a perfect log cabin formation and keeping the coals hot and glowing for marshmallows. Once it had burned down a little, Logan took over and Idie made a dash for where Jean was handing out graham crackers and chocolate.

Bobby arrived a little late. He’d been helping out Ororo with tidying up the basketball court— you wouldn’t have thought you could make much of a mess with nothing but a couple of balls and some eight-foot-high nets, but a hundred kids had found a way. He wandered along the beach, intending to head up the hill to the fire pit, but as he rounded a corner he came across Quentin Quire, sitting cross-legged on the sand and tossing pebbles absentmindedly into the lake.

“Hey, Quentin,” said Bobby. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” replied the boy. “My powers are back. Want to know what Ororo’s thinking?”

Bobby settled down on the sand beside him. “You’ve got to stop poking around in people’s heads, Q. It doesn’t make you cool. It just makes you a creep.”

“Sorry about what I said to you. About Scott.”

On the other side of camp, Illyana felt a curious tingling in her chest as hell froze over.

Bobby raised his eyebrows. “Mark the date! Quentin Quire, making a genuine apology?”

“If you’d rather, I can follow it up with an insult. You have terrible taste in music and you’re awful at painting.”

“Okay, first of all, that was two insults,” Bobby said. “And second of all… It’s cool. Whatever. But you can’t _do_ crap like that to people, Quentin. You can’t bring things like that up until the person’s _ready_ for you to.”

Quentin said nothing.

“I know it’s weird, all right? I’ll joke about my future husband with Rogue and Warren or I’ll chat with Xi’an about how all the hot ones are always straight or I’ll talk about the politics of being gay versus bi with Kitty, but that doesn’t mean it’s _easy_ and it doesn’t mean I’m _okay_ with it yet and it doesn’t mean I’m fine with everyone knowing.”

“I get it,” said Quentin.

“No,” said Bobby, “you don’t.”

“ _Yes,_ ” Quentin said with a surprising vehemence, “I _do._ Why do you think I was making fun of you?”

The words hung in the air for a minute.

Bobby shrugged. “Because you’re an asshole?”

“Because I’m jealous, Drake. Because you know exactly who you are, and now you just have to figure out how to get others to understand you that way. And me? I’m just—” He broke off. “Look, Bobby. I was a dick. I’m sorry, all right?”

“Can you say that onemore time so I can get a recording?” asked Bobby, and instantly regretted it. “Sorry. That was _me_ being a dick.”

Quentin smirked.

Bobby shrugged. “Whatever, dude.”

“Q! Bobby!” called someone from the campfire circle. “We’re making s’mores! Get up here!”

“I’m not hungry,” said Quentin to Bobby. “You go enjoy your carcinogenic edible oil products.”

“Aaaaand he’s back,” grumbled Bobby, standing up and brushing off the seat of his pants. “You know I’m here if you need to talk, all right?”

“Scott was right, you know,” Quentin said, so quietly Bobby almost missed it: “You’d be a great counselor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thing rec for today is the Trials of Apollo series by Rick Riordan. I know, I know! I thought I'd outgrown Rick Riordan too, but as it turns out, you don't outgrow gospel. 
> 
> The first book made some right-wing Christian homophobes shit themselves when it came out, so you know, it's gotta be good, right?


	8. Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In lieu of a typical chapter, I have procured for you a page of the notes taken by our intrepid young mutants after exploring the mysterious Camp SHIELD! 
> 
> But wait, you say. They haven't done that yet!
> 
> Never fear. It's the X-Men. Wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey stuff is pretty much par for the course.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154245564@N05/36075174803/in/datetaken/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's thing rec is the webseries Gayle. Watch it. Trust me.
> 
> For anybody still confused, this page is part of the "official" report on Camp SHIELD drafted and filed (written and hidden under a bunk) by Kitty and the gang. It's sort of an extra little thing. You don't really have to read it.
> 
> It was 'written' after the events of the next chapter, which is coming up soon...


	9. Going Viral

They made their way through the compound methodically, following the maps Kitty had printed off from Xavier’s computer. Here and there, they stumbled on a room or a hallway that was unmarked: a secret training room, a shooting range, a lead-lined (according to Trevor) physics lab with mysterious machinery filling every spare inch. To save time, they split up after the first few minutes: Kitty, Kurt, and Trevor and Bobby and Rogue each taking a floor. Dormitories they skipped, gambling on the probability that no weapons of mutant destruction were being engineered under the bunk beds. 

They rendezvoused around twelve-thirty in a computer lab, where Kitty held them up five minutes, expertly accessing the digital records and copying everything she could find onto a USB. Kurt watched from the side, clearly impressed. “Kitty, I never knew you were this good with computers.”

Kitty smiled distractedly. “Hm. Yeah. Not a lot of computers for me to show off on at camp.”

Rogue leaned in over her shoulder. “What sort of systems have they got here?”

“It’s good stuff,” replied Kitty. “Really good. CIA-level encryption, backups of their backups. I wish Doug was here, he’d love this.”

“Doug would have pissed himself in terror,” joked Bobby. 

Kitty smacked him on the arm without looking away from the computer. “We can’t all have nerves of ice, _Robert._ Doug’s my friend.” She closed one of the program windows and went to work covering her virtual tracks. “You shouldn’t be so cynical. The world’s not built on wisecracks.”

“That’s true,” agreed Bobby. “It’s not just wisecracks. There’s also puns, quips, and witticisms.” 

Trevor laughed. Rogue shot him a dirty look, and he shrugged self-consciously. “It was funny.”

Kitty unplugged her USB. “Okay. Let’s go.”

The quintet headed for the next building and phased through the wall into what looked like some sort of a biology lab. Lab benches ringed the room, with one wall covered in shelves and cabinets of chemicals: in the center of the room hummed incubators and refrigerators, topped with racks of petri dishes and white-labeled vials. Three cages on another table housed lab rats— Trevor winced. “Man, I’ve got a friend who’d _flip_ if she saw this.”

“They look pretty happy,” offered Bobby. “As lab rats go. None of them appear to be, y’know, dying, and those are some pretty swanky cages. Look, they’ve got hamster wheels.”

Trevor sighed. “I guess so.”

Rogue, Kurt, and Kitty had fanned out around the room and were studiously snapping photos and taking notes. Bobby patted Trevor reassuringly on the shoulder and left their lookout to go join them, sliding in beside where Kurt was copying down names of drugs from the tags on their brown glass bottles. “Recognize anything?”

“Yes, _kühler Junge._ My biochemistry degree makes all of this primary-school German to me.”

Bobby blinked. “You’re joking.”

“Of course I’m joking,” sighed Kurt. “I am seventeen years old, Bobby. Where would I have gotten a biochemistry degree?”

Trevor held out an eye-encrusted hand to look the rats in the eye. “You guys seem sweet. I hope you’re treated okay.”

Rogue squinted through her point-and-shoot camera, and the flash lit up the room, glinting in Kitty’s eyes as she glanced up from her sketch of the lab layout. “Are we about done in here?”

“I think so,” Kitty replied, lifting her paper and contemplating the diagram from another angle. “I’m pretty much finished.”

“Yeah, me t—”

Kurt didn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Kitty,” said Scott sternly from behind them, “exactly _what_ is going on here?”

Bobby, Rogue, Kurt, and Kitty spun around: Trevor just blinked the eye in the back of his head, startled. “Oh god.”

“Look at me, Trevor.”

“I am!”

Scott rubbed his forehead. “With your _face._ ”

Trevor turned around slowly, expression sheepish. “Kitty, I’m so sorry— I didn’t see—”

“That’s ‘cause one of the world’s most powerful telepaths didn’t want you to,” said Jean, stepping into the room behind Scott. “I’m disappointed in you four,” she said, pointing to the senior campers. “Recruiting a _kid_? I mean, these antics are pretty much what I expect from you, but it’s Trevor’s first year!”

“I agreed,” Trevor interrupted before any of the other campers could speak up. “I knew what I was doing. I’m just as responsible as any of them.”

Kitty swore she saw the ghost of a smile play across Scott’s face before it dropped back to the stern disciplinary mask. “Trev, you know we’re not buying that.”

Trevor opened his mouth again, but Bobby cut him off. “It’s fine. I got the rest of you into this, I’ll take the fall.” He fidgeted nervously with a vial he’d grabbed off the counter. “It was my idea.”

“Mostly mine,” Kitty corrected. “I’m not letting him take all the credit.”

“We knew that,” said Scott. “It didn’t take a genius to reason out that one. We know you, remember? What I want to know is-- what were you _thinking?_ ”

Jean narrowed her eyes at the stoppered tube in Bobby’s hand and lifted it with a thought, levitating it over towards her. “You’ve got no idea what’s in that thing, Bobby. This place is serious.” It stopped a couple of feet away from Jean, floating at hip level. “Scott, what should we do with—”

“What are you doing?! That’s lab-grade rhinoviral powder!” yelped an unfamiliar girl’s voice from the door, startling everyone. Concentration broken, the vial slipped from Jean’s telekinetic grip. She snatched at it with her hands, but she missed— and it shattered on the floor. A cloud of artificially-coloured orange dust rose from the pile of glass and wafted towards them in the breeze from the ceiling fans.

“Oh, _dear,_ ” gasped the girl, who everyone now saw was wearing a protective gown and full helmet hooked up to an oxygen tank.

“Hold your breath,” shouted Kitty, grabbing all the campers she could reach into a hug and phasing them.

“Aw, shit,” said Scott.

The dust passed harmlessly through the campers but drifted into the counselors’ faces: Jean squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t matter much. The dust was not to be thwarted, and the particles of virus made their way in wherever they could.

Scott sneezed.

Kitty focused and the campers dropped through the floor into the room below. She let go of them and sucked in a lungful of air. “Wow, that’s a _lot_ of work.”

Bobby looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t know you could phase that many people at once.”

“Neither did I,” said Kitty, looking around. In the dim starlight coming through the windows, she could make out the silhouettes of machining equipment: it looked like some sort of robotics lab. 

“Everyone okay?”

There was a general murmur of assent. Kitty breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. All right. Time to get out of here.”

“Aren’t we going to help Scott and Jean?” asked Kurt. “We can’t just abandon them. They could be dying from that stuff.”

“Rhinovirus is the common cold,” said Rogue, surprising everyone else in the room. “Ah’ve never heard of it being stored in _powder_ , but ah’m assuming the virus itself is the same. Jean and Scott are relatively young and healthy— they’ll have a nasty cough and probably not be much good to anyone for a week or so, but they’ll be fine.”

Bobby was taken aback. “Damn, girl.”

“Ah worked as a receptionist at a microbiology lab for a few months,” she shrugged. “They were short-staffed.”

“I am finding you more attractive with every passing day,” muttered Kitty. “Point stands, though— they’re still trespassing in a government pathology lab.”

“Gimme a top-up,” said Rogue, pulling off her gloves. “Ah’ll phase, get in, grab them, and teleport back to camp as fast as ah can. Ah can drop them in the doctor’s office and teleport myself out before ah unphase. There’s showers in there— they can clean off and ditch their clothes so they aren’t walking germ pillars anymore.”

“Oh, we’re gonna be in _so_ much trouble,” Trevor remarked, surprisingly nonchalantly.

Kitty and Kurt exchanged glances, then grabbed Rogue’s hands and felt their knees go weak. Kurt stifled a yawn. “You’re getting much better at this, Rogue. Last year this felt like getting hit by a truck.”

“That’s enough,” said Rogue, letting go. “See you back at camp, yeah?”

There was a _bamf_ and she disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke.

Kurt shook off the lingering headache and held out his hands. “All right, everyone. Let’s go home and face the music.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Today's thing rec is the current Iceman run by Sina Grace, on the off chance you're not reading it yet. Remember, pre-order it through your local comics shop so that Marvel counts the sale! If you have $4 to spare, it really is worth the read.
> 
> Up next: the music is faced! The world's most ubiquitous illness reveals how it earned the epithet "common!" Multiple men make appearances!


	10. The Music, by S. Summers, arr. J. E. Grey

“I cannot,” _— sniff — cough —_ “I cannot believe this is happening.” Scott coughed again and drew in a laboured breath. “We expected better from you. All of you.”

Kurt, Rogue, Kitty, and Bobby stood outside the door to the doctor’s office, perfectly happy to obey Dr. McCoy’s orders and stay six feet away from their counselors at all times. Jean telekinetically passed Scott a box of tissues.

“Thanks, Jean.” He turned his attention back to the kids. “So now,” — _sniff —_ “now, the question is what we’re gonna do with you.”

“Outhouse toilets,” growled Logan from over by a shelf of bandages. “Headfirst.”

“ _No,_ Logan,” said Scott and Dr. McCoy at the same time. The doctor rubbed his furry blue temples. “The last thing we need is four teenagers in here with _E. coli._ Please apply some common sense.”

Footsteps sounded behind the campers, and they turned to see Ororo and Sean coming up the path. Neither looked particularly well: Ororo’s usually cheerful expression was eclipsed by an exhausted mask, and Sean’s feet dragged as he walked, dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey, Doc,” said Sean with a pathetic attempt at a smile. “Got any cough medicine? ‘Ro and I seem to be coming down with something.”

“Oh, God,” Jean groaned. “Scott, what did you _do?_ ”

Scott looked indignant. “I didn’t do anything! Why do you all act like everything’s my fault?”

Dr. McCoy blinked. “Oh, dear. Jean, you went up to pick up the breakfast tray for our table today, didn’t you?”

A look of horror slowly dawned on Jean’s face. “Oh no. We were keeping the _kids_ away from Scott and me, but—”

Bobby turned to Kitty with wide eyes. “A solid two-thirds of the camp staff were at that table. If Jean contaminated the food—”

“Shut up, Bobby!” barked Logan, Dr. McCoy, and Jean in unison. Jean buried her face in her hands. “I’m such an idiot.”

Scott shifted over to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “No, you were doing something good. That’s a good thing, that your instinct was to help out. Nothing wrong with that.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright. Let’s move on. What’s the plan?”

Someone broke into a coughing fit further up the path, increasing in volume as they stumbled closer: Kurt leaned back to see who it was. “It’s Alex— he does _not_ look great.”

Scott tried to stand up, but doubled over, gasping for breath. Jean pulled him back down. “Don’t be an idiot.”

Dr. McCoy shook his head, waving his hands as though he could pull a solution out of thin air. “I think we need to get all the staff here. Now. As fast as we can.”

Logan glared at the kids. “I guess today’s your lucky day. Better scram before you get sneezed on.”

—

The medical office had two cots, an examination table, two blue vinyl couches that smelled like bleach, and a couple of folding chairs scattered around the room. Every seat was full. Laura walked from counselor to counselor with a bottle of Tylenol, shaking tablets into palms.

“Thanks, hon. I usually take three,” said Sean, looking down at the two tablets in his hand.

Laura continued on with her duties, expression serious. “You weigh 170 pounds,” she said, not glancing away from the bottle as she shook two into Ororo’s palm. “That’s the appropriate dosage.”

“Okay, first off, I’m a _solid_ 190—”

“No,” said Laura. “170. I’m very good at this.”

Sean squinted at her. “Why?”

“If administered orally, 0.6 grams of potassium cyanide would result in your death within five hours,” Laura replied, moving on to Ororo. She sized up the activities director and rattled two pills into her palm. “Poisons require an accurate estimate of the target’s weight.”

Sean gaped at the girl.

Ororo smiled kindly at her. “Thank you very much, Laura.”

Over by the door, Scott coughed, a guttural scraping sound. “We can’t all just leave the kids.” He grabbed the edge of the cot and levered himself up. “I have to get back out there.”

Dr. McCoy stood up to block the door with his remarkable bulk. “Oh no. You aren’t going anywhere.”

“Hank,” groaned Scott, “ninety percent of the counselors have got this bug now. The camp _can’t run_ if you keep all of us in here. Just give us some lozenges and—”

“He’s about to pass out,” predicted Alex. “Scott, sit _down._ ”

Scott half-sat, half-collapsed back onto the cot, wheezing.

“We need reinforcements, then,” said the doctor. “None of you are well enough to work, and even if I let you out, you wouldn’t be any use to anyone. Additionally, if— as you’ve told me— this is viral, the risk of it spreading to the campers and producing a veritable epidemic is extremely high. We have some vulnerable children here. Bo, the other junior campers… there’s a boy in Cabin 5 who’s on immunosuppressants and a girl in 13 whose mutation halved her lung capacity. They could become seriously ill.”

“So what is this, quarantine?” Logan slouched on a chair in the corner. “What’s gonna happen to the kids? I mean, me and Darwin are fine, and the older ones can help out, but—”

Dr. McCoy shrugged. “My first priority is the health of everyone on camp grounds. Administrative tasks aren’t my area.”

Jean looked at him incredulously. “Where are we supposed to find a dozen people ready to drop everything and come pinch-hit at a summer camp for _mutants_?”

“I’m sure we can find _someone_ ,” said Ororo, voice rough as she rubbed her sore throat. 

“Can we find someone who can be in ten places at once?” asked Jean, shaking her head.

Silence hung for a moment.

Alex closed his eyes. “I know a guy.”

Scott’s expression was one of absolute horror. “Alex, you can’t be thinking—”

— 

Jamie Madrox strode cheerily onto Camp Xavier grounds, trench coat flying out behind him in the breeze, just as the sun was settling down towards the horizon. He had a smile on his face and a duffel bag over one shoulder, and he walked with a spring in his step: it was always nice to be needed, and his ego had been due for a boost.

“Madrox,” called Logan from the dining hall steps. “Took you long enough.”

“I think I liked it more when Alex was begging for my help,” quipped Jamie. “Your thank-yous could use some work.”

“You owed us one,” grumbled Logan, standing up and stretching. “Remember the Venice incident?”

Jamie pursed his lips. “Mm. Not ringing any bells. Haven’t been to Venice in…”

“Great,” Logan said, throwing his hands up. “So your _dupe_ owes us one. You should probably go scoop him up one of these days.”

“One of these days,” agreed Jamie. “So how many d’you want?”

“I figured maybe we could introduce you to the kids before you start cranking out mini-Madroxes. Might freak ‘em out to have a bunch of stranger clones wanderin’ around—”

Jamie spread his arms. “You’re the boss, Boss.”

“One of ‘em might even sock you in the face if we’re lucky,” Logan muttered. 

“Logan, always the romantic,” Jamie grinned. “How’re things with Jean?”

“Let’s go,” grouched Logan, turning and heading into the building.

He’d asked Hank once, and the doctor had estimated he had 100 billion nerve cells in his body. Logan had a funny feeling that Jamie and Company were going to get on all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thing rec for today is the song "What's It Gonna Be" by Shura, also known as The WLW/MLM Solidarity Anthem. You should watch the music video.
> 
> Sorry I've been gone so long! Classes started up again and I've been swamped, but I haven't forgotten this fic, don't you worry. Next chapter's going to be pretty long, so be patient. I'll make it worth it ;)
> 
> Next time: Fourteen Jamies get put in charge of children and it goes exactly how you think it would! Necessity is the mother of forgiveness! And... what's Camp Brotherhood been up to these past few days?


	11. Qualified

You might be surprised to learn that Jamie Madrox was far from the worst person to have running your summer camp. In fact, he boasted several years’ experience as a paramedic, a bachelor’s degree in childhood development, and just about every safety certification it was possible to get. His dupes had spent time as a canoe-tripping guide, a sous-chef, a kindergarten teacher, and a gymnastics coach, and one— quite possibly his most famous dupe of all time— had created a YouTube channel called “Crafts for People who are Terrible at Crafts” which gained almost two hundred thousand subscribers before Jamie reabsorbed him. This skillset combined with his ability to literally be in a dozen places at once made him more than perfect for the position.

The only problem, of course, was his personality. Or personalities.

“It’s reverse-inverse youth psychobehavioural conditioning,” explained one of the dupes to a perplexed Kurt as Bo gleefully waved a pair of scissors around at Arts & Crafts. “By allowing them freedom, we train them to make good decisions through exposing them to natural consequences. See, that little girl is probably going to cut herself, and then she’ll learn not to play with scissors.”

“Did you know, Kurt,” said a second dupe, snatching the scissors away from Bo and handing her some popsicle sticks and school glue, “that you can just put as many big words together as you like and people will believe you know what you’re talking about?”

“Hey,” said the first dupe. “That’s rude. It’s been scientifically proven to work.”

“Our job is not to train these kids to handle the disappointments of the real world,” argued the second. “It’s to keep them in one piece till their parents come to get them!”

 _Or until the counselors get better,_ thought Kurt. _Fingers crossed that it’s soon._

//

Across the camp, Bobby was having a much more enjoyable time at archery with Jamie Prime: it was a wet and windy day, and only two other kids had signed up to brave the weather and get in some shooting. Dani Moonstar and Xi’an Coy Manh chatted cheerfully in the rain as they fired arrow after arrow into the damp foam targets— Dani’s arrows landed in the yellow every time, while Xi’an’s mostly wound up in the forest. 

“They look like they’re having a blast,” said Jamie from where he and Bobby leaned against the archery shed, shielded from the rain by its canopy. “Did you know I’ve never done archery in my life?”

Bobby raised his eyebrows, impressed. “I didn’t know there was _anything_ you hadn’t done. You were an agent of SHIELD, you robbed seven banks at the same time, you worked on _Supernatural_ , but you’ve never shot an arrow?”

“There’s lots of things I haven’t done,” countered Jamie. “I’ve never eaten a funnel cake, I’ve never seen _X-Files,_ I’ve never kissed a boy, I’ve never written a book, I’ve never worn an American flag as a cape, I’ve never been skydiving… There’s so many things in the world, Bobby, not even I can do all of them.”

“I’ve done almost all those things,” Bobby replied, “and I highly recommend them. The American flag one is particularly fun if you set the flag on fire while marching through an alt-right rally. They _really_ thought they were going to kick my ass.”

Jamie laughed. “They must have got a nasty surprise.”

“Mm.” Bobby smirked. “Icing Nazis is _real_ direct action.”

Dani sighted down the length of her arrow, muscles tight, focus unbroken by the raindrops streaking down her face. She took a slow breath in and relaxed her fingertips on the exhale: the bowstring snapped forward with a _thwang_ and the arrow nailed the target dead center. It was a textbook bullseye— her second of the day.

The arrow had lodged perfectly in the nock of her first one.

Dani stared openmouthed for a solid ten seconds before it sank in and she yelled “Robin Hood!”

“Yeaaaaaah!” shouted Xi’an, going in for a high ten and pulling her friend into a hug. “Spectacular!”

Jamie looked impressed if a little confused. “What just happened?”

“Legendary archery shot,” explained Bobby. “She split an arrow. Camp tradition dictates that she gets a custom-made cake from the kitchen and her name gets engraved on the back wall of the dining hall.” He cupped his hands around his mouth, improvising a megaphone. “DANI! YOU WANT CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?”

Dani looked at Xi’an. “What do you feel like? I’m kinda feeling lemon today, actually.”

“I could go for some lemon cake,” agreed Xi’an. “Let’s go with that. LEMON,” she called back to Bobby and Jamie. 

Jamie made a face. “Do we even have lemons in the kitchen?”

Bobby shrugged. “It’s a camp rule. She gets what she wants. If we don’t have lemons, we have to get some lemons.”

“What happens if we don’t?” asked Jamie.

Bobby looked utterly flabbergasted by the question. “We have to. Camp tradition.”

“This is a lot like a cult, isn’t it,” Jamie mused. He leaned forwards and thumped back against the wall of the shed, not taking his hands out of his trench coat pockets as another dupe materialized to his side. 

“Have you _really_ never kissed a boy?” the dupe inquired.

“You know I haven’t,” Jamie replied.

“I know you want to,” said the dupe. “Don’t lie to yourself.” He patted him on the shoulder and headed off to deliver the lemony fresh news to the three Jamies working in the dining hall.

Bobby watched him go, bemused. “Do your dupes usually out you to the public?”

“More often than you’d think,” Jamie said, scratching his neck. “One time I got in a fight with one of them because he wouldn’t let me out of a closet I was locked in until I agreed I was gay. That was a fun night.”

“How long were you in there for?”

“That specific _physical_ closet, half an hour. The other one, jury’s still out.”

Bobby sighed. “Why am I the one who always ends up consulting on sexuality crises?”

“Hey,” said Jamie. “You asked.”

//

Rogue walked into the med bay after lunch with a box of paperbacks and an expression that was more stubborn than anything: Dr. McCoy tried to stop her, but she slid out a truly impressive set of bone claws and he got out of the way with the utmost haste.

Jean was in the back room with Ororo and a few of the other counselors, most of whom were dozing in a NyQuil haze: she sat cross-legged on a suspiciously stained armchair, looking miserable. Rogue could hear her wheezing from across the room.

“Hey,” Rogue said quietly so as not to wake anyone. “Ah brought you some books.”

Jean looked up, startled. “You’re not supposed to be in here! We’re quarantined!”

“It’s fine,” said Rogue, holding up her hand to display the rapidly healing wounds where her claws had punched through the skin. “See? Logan said it was important that ah get to talk to you. Ah’ll shower afterwards, change clothes, everything. It’s just— ah wanted to apologize.”

Jean looked at her warily. “Go on.”

“If we were worried,” Rogue continued, “or if we were curious or anything, we should have come to you. Trying to launch some mission on our own was reckless and unnecessary, and getting Trevor involved was just plain irresponsible. We made a whole series a’ bad decisions and in the end we caused this mess for everyone here. Ah’m sorry, Jean. We’re sorry. We’ll do better.”

Jean contemplated the girl’s face for a second. “Rogue, you know, I’m not upset for the reasons you think.”

Rogue blinked in surprise. “You’re… not?”

“You showed all the skills we’re trying to teach you,” said Jean. “Leadership, bravery, effective and creative use of powers, inquisitiveness. I was _impressed_ when I found out what you were up to. Your plan was intelligent, well thought-out, and honestly— if Scott and I hadn’t turned up, I truly think it would have worked.” Jean popped a cough drop into her mouth, and it clicked against her teeth as she kept talking. “The problem wasn’t that it was reckless, Rogue, because the way you’d planned it— it wasn’t. You had safety measures on your safety measures. You brought along a kid who could literally see through walls and another who could teleport you halfway back to the city in a split second if everything went sideways. The problem is that it was _illegal._ ”

“What?” said Rogue, taken aback.

“Have you ever been arrested?”

Rogue shook her head.

“Yeah, well, if we hadn’t intervened, you still probably wouldn’t have been. But do you know what happens to mutants who _do_ get arrested in America?”

“Ah’m guessing it’s nothing good,” Rogue replied.

“You’re guessing right,” Jean confirmed, “and in the name of you getting to sleep tonight, let’s leave it at that. No matter how minute the chances were of you getting caught, the consequences if you _were_ … Rogue, we don’t live in a bubble. As much as we try to protect you, train you, keep you safe, that world out there still hates us, and everything you do is getting recorded, filed, studied under a microscope. It’s not fair, but it’s how it is.” She cleared her throat. “We weren’t mad because you didn’t talk to us, or because you snuck out at night, or because you got us all sick or even because you got Trevor involved. We were mad because you broke the law, and for _you,_ that was risking your lives.”

Rogue blinked. “You’re upset because we took a risk that was too big.”

“Exactly,” said Jean. “All the camp rules you broke… those don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. But you went out into the real world without thinking about the real consequences. And that was _dangerous._ ”

“Ah’m sorry,” Rogue said honestly. “Ah really am. We didn’t think it through.”

“I know.” Jean smiled. “Next time you decide to defy my authority, just take your good plan and make it foolproof, alright?” She coughed, worn out by all the talking, and reached for a glass of water beside the chair. “I’ve had a lot of time to think in here the past few hours, and I’m over being pissed. And even if I wasn’t— well. I need your help. Yours, Bobby’s, Kitty’s— Jamie might have the manpower, but you have the camp expertise.” She laughed weakly. “How do you feel about being honorary counselors for the next couple days?”

Rogue smiled. “If ah know mah friends, they don’t need to be asked to step up.”

//

The flames of the campfire licked at the indigo night sky as wood smoke filled the air: it was evening campfire, and despite Kitty’s repeated offerings to take charge for the evening ( _it’s the sensible thing to do— do you even know any camp songs?)_ the Jamies were holding court.

“All right,” said Jamie. “Gather round. It’s time for a ghost story.”

“Nobody actually tells ghost stories around campfires,” Jamie argued. “Tell a romance.”

“Not that you’d know anything about romance,” said a third Jamie. He raised a hand to Bobby for a high-five.

Bobby squinted at him. “You realize you’re dragging _yourself,_ right?”

“Eh,” shrugged Jamie. “It only gets confusing if you think about it for too long.”

The Jamie by the campfire settled down on the ground and leaned in towards the embers, the orange glow casting stark light and shadow over his features. Campers circled up around him, clustering close: the younger ones would usually be in bed by now, but the promise of a story kept them wide awake.

“I’m still voting for a romance,” complained Jamie Two.

“Ooh,” suggested another one from across the circle. “How about a mystery? Something noir.”

The Jamie in the middle— Bobby guessed he was the original, but it wasn’t like there was any way to tell— groaned. “How about you all shut up and let me entertain the children?”

“What’re you gonna do,” jeered Jamie Three, “absorb us?”

Jamie stuck his arm out and Jamie Three was instantly sucked back up. The other dupes fell silent.

“Any other questions?” inquired Jamie politely.

“Nope,” said the one across the circle.

Jamie rubbed his forehead. “That was rhetorical. You wrecked the effect.”

“Tell the story, already,” grumbled Quentin. “I have mayhem to get back to.”

Jamie took his time to look around at the expectant faces glowing in the firelight, and he smiled. “The story you are about to hear is not one… but many. A tale of heroes and villains, of power, of sacrifice, of great love and great loss.”

A log cracked and shifted, spraying sparks into the air. 

“It is not one story…” repeated Jamie, “but many. It is the story of the X-Men.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeehaw! We're back!
> 
> This chapter was originally going to be twice as long but I decided to split it in two because it made more sense plot-wise, and this way we also stick to a reasonably standard chapter length. The rest will be going up tomorrow!
> 
> Today's thing rec is the book "The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers.


	12. If You Want A Job Done Right

It was two A.M., and as one, every alarm on Camp SHIELD grounds short-circuited, the metal of their wiring tearing and tangling uselessly. Locks snapped open, deadbolts swung clear: windows slid open just a crack, small enough not to notice, but wide enough to jam something through and shove them up higher if one wanted to. There was a barely-audible crunching as every bullet in the building was crushed into a misshapen lump of lead, jamming the guns of the guards on duty and rendering buckets of ammo useless. The whole affair took less than ten seconds— and just like that, the compound was helpless.

A girl approached the concrete border wall, face shadowed by the hood of a deep crimson cloak: she reached out a glowing hand towards the obstruction, not breaking stride, and it rearranged into a high brick archway through which she strode with confidence.

Something flashed through the gateway beside her at incredible speed, whipping her curly hair back and stinging her cheeks: she squeezed her eyes shut reflexively, but whatever it had been was long gone.

She made for the main building, and the streak flashed by her again in the opposite direction, then back, sprinting a back-and-forth between the compound and the gate. The next time it came by, she stuck out her hand and there was a _crack_ as it slammed into an invisible wall that appeared out of nowhere.

“Ow,” said Pietro— because of course it was him— from where he was sprawled on the ground. “What was _that_ for?”

//

“Rogue.”

“ _Rogue._ ”

Moonlight shone dimly through the open cabin door, illuminating a tall silhouette bending over Rogue’s bunk. It reached out a hand as if to shake her awake by the shoulder, then thought better of it and poked her through the blanket. “Rogue.”

Rogue groaned, and the stranger winced. “Shh!”

Across the cabin, Kitty rolled over in her bunk, bed frame creaking under her weight. The stranger’s eyes widened like a deer in the headlights, and he froze for a few moments until he heard the girl snoring again.

Then he reached back towards Rogue. “Anna,” he whispered.

Rogue extricated a hand from the blankets to rub her eyes. “Wh…”

“Shh,” murmured the boy under his breath. “I need to talk to you.”

Her eyes widened as she took in the scene in front of her. “Ah— Remy, ah’m in mah pyjamas!”

“And you look lovely in them, _chérie._ But we need to talk.” 

Rogue squeezed her eyes shut. “Ah’ll… Ah’ll meet you out front. Just give me a second to change.”

“Sure I can’t stay?” he smirked.

“Get _out—_ ”

Remy’s eyes twinkled in the faint starlight as he turned towards the door. His footfalls were light, practiced, quick, and he almost made it.

The ground in front of him flashed blindingly bright, a perfect disc of light: Remy threw his arms up to shield his face, and when his eyes stopped watering, he opened them to see Illyana Rasputin standing in the doorway, clad only in a baby blue nightgown, with a glowing longsword to his throat.

“Hello,” she said. “ _What,_ exactly, do you think you’re doing?”

“Illyana!” yelled Rogue, startled into total wakefulness. She jumped out of bed and slapped the light switch, illuminating the cabin. “You can’t just— Ah’m—”

Remy managed a winning smile and raised his hands slowly in surrender. “Hello to you too.”

Illyana narrowed her eyes, keeping the point of her sword level with Remy’s Adam’s apple. “Who do you think you are?”

“Remy Lebeau,” he replied, “at your service.” He went to bow dramatically but realized that that was a poor idea almost immediately.

“Illyana,” shouted Kitty, who by then was wide awake along with the rest of the cabin, “put the sword down!”

“Where’d you _get_ that!?” gasped Jubilee. “Is it _glowing_?”

Illyana ignored them. “ _You’re_ Remy Lebeau? Really.”

“What,” asked Remy, sounding surprisingly nonchalant given his situation, “you want ID?”

“I thought you’d be prettier,” Illyana mused.

“I’m wounded.”

“What do you want with Rogue?”

Kitty advanced slowly, cautiously, the way you’d approach a skittish horse. “Yana… we can talk about this like civilized people. There’s no need for the sword.”

“Kitty,” Illyana warned, “I’ve got this.”

Kitty stepped closer and reached out towards the hilt. “I don’t doubt it, but weaponry’s not necessary.” Her fingers wrapped around the handle just above Illyana’s hands, and an electric pulse surged through her body: the sword flashed and glowed brighter.

Shocked, Illyana let go. “That shouldn’t—”

It was heavier than it looked, and Kitty fought the buckling of her wrists as she lowered the tip of the sword carefully to the ground and rested it on the wood floor. “O- _kay_. Let’s try this again.” She addressed Remy. “What’s going on, Lebeau?”

“I _needed_ to talk to Rogue,” he said, lowering his hands. “But apparently I’m talking to all of you now. It’s about that camp across the lake.”

Illyana stared wide-eyed at where Kitty’s hands still gripped the hilt of her sword tightly.

“Yeah,” said Rogue, “we tried sticking our noses in over there, and now Camp Xavier’s being supervised by a bunch of clones. Let it go, Remy.”

“We know _you_ weren’t exactly successful,” Remy replied, amused. “But luckily we’re much better thieves than you are. Right now, Magneto’s kids are waltzing through that compound like it’s a street fair— we don’t need help with that.”

“I thought you were the expert at breaking and entering,” Kitty countered. “Why aren’t you over there with them?”

Remy raised an eyebrow. “Working with _Pietro_? Are you joking? Besides, Rogue and I have a connection. I’m uniquely qualified to be the recruitment officer.”

Everybody looked at Rogue, who blushed beet red. “We don’t have any _connection._ ”

“Liar,” said Jubilee.

//

The Maximoff twins worked their way through the building slowly, systematically: their path was much like the one Kitty and Bobby had planned out several nights prior, but the sheer scope of Wanda’s power made everything go much more smoothly. Files duplicated and alphabetized themselves in stacks in Pietro’s arms as fast as he could run them back to camp, computers typed in their own login keys, and the few awake residents they ran into immediately turned around and headed back to bed none the wiser.

Wanda pulled a folder out of a formerly triple-locked filing cabinet and went to hand it to Pietro, but something made her stop and flip it open. 

“What’re you doing?” asked her brother, vibrating like he’d just drunk fourteen cups of coffee. “We should keep going. I want to to get _some_ sleep tonight.”

“Shh,” said Wanda, and Pietro suddenly found himself quite speechless.

The title on the top page was large and bold, and the words sent a shiver down Wanda’s spine for no reason she could discern.

**THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE**

//

“What do you do,” asked Remy, “when your enemy has a nuke?”

There was a long silence.

And then, finally, Illyana spoke up for the first time since Kitty had taken her sword:

“You build a bigger one.”

Kitty’s expression darkened. “No. No, no, no, Remy, you are _not_ kidnapping Rogue to make her into some kind of super-weapon. I don’t care what Magneto’s told you.”

“Hey,” said Rogue. “Ah’m a big girl, ah can speak for myself.”

Jubilee rubbed her forehead. “Oh, it is _too early_ for this. Remy—”

The boy threw his hands up. “Hey! Don’t shoot the messenger!”

Kitty set her jaw. “I’m thinking we need to have a serious chat with Magneto.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: a serious chat, or two. Sword lesbian opinions. Uneasy alliances. Bigger nukes.
> 
> Today's thing rec is Phonogram: The Singles Club by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. Ah, Phonogram. The most criminally underrated comic of all time. I love you more than you know.


	13. Serious Chats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in light of a Certain Someone's return to the marvel universe it's important to me that y'all know that the only charles this fic will ever contain is xmcu charles because comics charles is what you call a Dick and i’m not about that in my fun summer camp au
> 
> also: this chapter goes out to KittyViolet and Shiro258, thank you both for all your comments over the past while! it's meant so much to see people keeping up with this fic and finding it at least a little enjoyable ;)

Camp Brotherhood was east of Xavier’s, where the lake curved in to put them on opposite sides of a shallow bay. The water was glassy at this time of night, and Kitty had to fight the urge to go looking for a stone to skip on the way to the boys’ cabins. She’d steadfastly refused to do anything without taking Bobby and Kurt, and Remy had thrown his hands up and declared _why the hell not, bring the whole family._ So Kitty intended to.

Rogue was still stuck on her conversation with Jean from a day or two ago, turning over the words in her head. _Next time you decide to defy my authority, take your good plan and make it foolproof._ Jean and Scott really did care about them, about everyone at this camp.

_But if you care— where’s the line? Where does keeping your head down stop being enough? When do you have to take a risk to keep everyone safe?_

“Kitty,” Rogue called quietly to where her friend was climbing up the steps of Bobby’s cabin. “Ah forgot something. Ah’m going to go back for it.”

Kitty looked at her suspiciously. “Be quick.”

And Rogue ran, trusting that Kitty would be focusing on phasing through the door and not on the fact that Rogue was headed for the dining hall instead of their cabin.

The camp looked different at night, almost ghostly: buildings loomed colourlessly out of the shadows as her feet fell light on the ground. Rogue flashed past A&C, only a little weirded out by the absence of children swarming the porch for string: all the lights were out down at the canoeing docks, and she almost tripped over a tree root, not used to the darkness on this part of the path. The dining hall roof cast a hard-line silhouette against the sky up ahead. Rogue quickened her pace, blowing past the building and skidding to a halt at the staff cabins behind it.

She caught her breath, smoothed down her shirt, and brushed off her shorts before marching up the ramp to the first one and rapping sharply on the door. A light was on in the window.

The door swung open.

“Hello, Anna,” said Charles Xavier, clearly unfazed by her appearance. “What brings you to my quarters on this lovely night?”

“Professor Xavier,” she said, skipping the pleasantries, “do you think Magneto is right?”

The professor blinked. “About what, specifically?”

“Do you think it’s always going to come down to violence? Do you think we need to protect our people above all else, that we need to save ourselves because God knows no-one else is going to? Do you think we need to stop holding ourselves back to make others comfortable? Do you think we should be proud to be mutants?” The words poured out in a jumble, all the thoughts she’d turned over in her head, all the questions she’d never found an answer for. “Will we ever find peace? Do you think there is a future out there where we aren’t hated and feared— and do you think that it’ll come to us if we keep our heads down long enough?”

There was a pause. 

“Anna,” said Xavier gently, “do _you_?”

“If ah knew,” she said, “Ah wouldn’t be asking you.”

“Oh, I think you would,” he replied. “You don’t want my opinion, and you don’t need it, either. You want me to tell you what _you_ think, and I will not do that.”

Rogue bit her lip.

“I trust you,” he said quietly. “You are your own person. You are your own mutant. Ask _yourself_ those questions, Anna— not me.”

“Ah already have,” she whispered. “And— and—”

Xavier sat there patiently, hands folded in his lap, gaze not without compassion.

Rogue shook her head. “Professor, there’s something going on across the lake. Something bad, and ah might be able to stop it. But ah don’t know if ah can and ah don’t know if ah should. Jean thinks I should let y’all handle things after what happened last week, but—”

“No, she doesn’t,” said Xavier. “She thinks you shouldn’t take risks you don’t need to. She thinks you should take your smart... and play it smarter. And to be entirely honest with you, I quite agree. Play it smart, Anna. Play whatever path you choose smart— and I trust that you will play it well.”

“But,” Rogue answered, letting the word hang in the air as she tried to come up with something to follow it. “But ah don’t know. Ah don’t know what to do.”

“The fact that you are here right now,” stated Xavier, “tells me that you do.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” said the man with a half-smile, “I should be getting to bed. Old age makes invalids of us all.”

And the door closed with a _click,_ and Rogue, so uncertain just moments before, suddenly found herself filled with an odd sense of conviction.

//

Pietro smacked down the file on Magneto’s desk with fire in his eyes. “You were right. That’s no R&D camp— that’s a bomb factory.”

Magneto leafed efficiently through the folder’s contents until he reached the _Candidates_ section, and here he paused to consider the pages. A woman who didn’t look older than twenty but had a KGB record suggestive of three times that stared out from a glossy photo, eyes unreadable: there was a boy and a teenage girl (fifteen, by the birth date provided) both classified as ‘supergenius-level intellect; gifted mechanical engineers— promising in weapons development’, a girl listed as able to manipulate and shape her own mass to walk on water, lift cars, climb buildings. Schematics for flight suits and prototypic mechanical wings lined one page: on the opposite side were full body scans and performance reports of a boy with determined eyes and a devious smile. Archery records of a _C. Barton_ and _K. Bishop_ were crammed in under copies of detailed blueprints of explosive and trick arrows; a young man with a shock of blond hair and biceps the size of Wanda’s head stood above a table detailing experimental drug therapies and metabolic rates; an innocent-looking boy with thick glasses was filed next to a blurry shot of something huge, green, and furious.

“Oh, Charles,” he murmured, “I hate to say I told you so.”

//

They met back up by the flagpole. Bobby was wearing two different shoes and his hair stuck out at odd angles, but he looked like he was headed to a black-tie dinner compared to Kurt, who was wearing an XXL multicoloured t-shirt that read _WHY SO BLUE?_ in messy handwritten Sharpie. Rogue raised an eyebrow, and he sighed. “Bobby thought of me while they were doing tie-dye at Arts & Crafts yesterday. I was touched.”

“I hid all his other shirts,” clarified Bobby. 

“Ah figured,” said Rogue. “Let’s go.” She looked to Remy, who was trying to lean seductively against the flagpole and failing. 

“I’ve got this one,” said Illyana, producing another glowing disc that was almost blinding against the dark grass. “You want to go to Camp Brotherhood? I’d rather show up with the element of surprise.”

“You’re very paranoid,” observed Remy. “Live a little, _chѐre._ ” He winked.

“You’re not my type,” replied Illyana, only a bit derisively. 

“Illyana,” said Kitty, “I thought you said you were having trouble controlling your teleportation. Not that we don’t trust you, but—”

Illyana glared at her, stepped onto the disc, and disappeared. 

“Ouch,” said Remy. “I don’t think she appreciated the attitude.”

Kitty squinted at the place where Illyana had been just a moment before. “I—”

“Looking for me?” came a voice from the top of the flagpole. Five flashlights and Jubilee’s fireworks spun to illuminate Illyana, balanced on one combat boot thirty feet off the ground. She’d landed perfectly on a target less than two inches square.

“Illyana,” gasped Kitty, “get down from there! You’re going to get hurt!”

“Oops,” said Illyana flatly, leaning back and toppling off the pole.

Bobby slapped his hands over Kitty’s mouth just fast enough to block a scream as another disk flashed open halfway between Illyana and the ground, swallowing her neatly. “She’s just showing off,” he said. “She’ll be fine. You hurt her.”

“I told her that I trusted her!”

Bobby looked at her incredulously. “You’re _really_ that stupid, huh?”

“No! Bobby, what are you _talking_ about?”

Light streaked in a perfect circle in front of them and Illyana stepped out, eyes flaming. “Let’s go, Pryde.”

“Yana,” said Kitty, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” 

“Let’s _go,_ ” she repeated, and another disk glowed under their feet, removing any choice Kitty had had in the matter.

It wasn’t like teleporting with Kurt, not at all: that was one place to the next, straightforward, blink-and-you’re there. This was something else entirely, something that stank of fire and monsters and death: all Kitty could see was a blur of blood-red, but when she closed her eyes there were only the screams that reverberated inside her skull and the searing cold and burning heat. Bile rose in her throat and she fought the urge to phase, not sure what the effects would be of dropping out of tangibility in this momentary in-between. 

She hit the ground hard, sucking in cool forest air and pressing her forehead to the dark ground. Her ribs ached, her throat stung: her fingers dug into the dirt, scrabbling for purchase.

Illyana stood in front of her, hands on her hips, expression not entirely unkind. “Are you all right?”

Kitty pulled in another strained breath. “What… what _was_ that?”

Beside her, Bobby and Jubilee were in a similar state: Remy was struggling to his feet, doing his best to stay composed for the benefit of Rogue, who was the only one seemingly unaffected. Even Kurt looked shaken.

Illyana gestured over her shoulder. “We’re here.”

The windows of the Camp Brotherhood office shone brightly against the blackness of the night, twin lanterns hanging beside the door illuminating a path in front of them. Kitty shivered. 

“Let’s do this, then,” said Rogue, and she strode for the cabin with a confidence Kitty had never seen in her before. 

Her knuckles rapped sharply on the door three times before the rest of them caught up, and it swung open just as Bobby stumbled onto the porch. Pietro smirked at them. “Remy! You succeeded at something! Congratulations!”

“Means a lot, comin’ from someone with so much experience failing. You really know what it’s like,” said Remy, thumping him on the shoulder just a bit harder than he needed to.

“I didn’t think you were bringing _all_ of them,” came a deep voice from inside the cabin, and Magneto stepped out from behind his desk. “We talked about this. Your… _fondness_ for Xavier’s senior campers is getting ridiculous.”

“Hey,” protested Remy. “They insisted.”

“We did,” affirmed Kitty. She stepped inside and reached out a hand to shake. “Katherine Pryde. I’ve been told you intend to exploit my friend’s powers to intimidate Camp SHIELD into submission?”

Magneto took her hand, taken aback by her assertiveness. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”

“What did your campers find on their reconnaissance mission?” Kitty inquired, still shaking determinedly. She had a thing for never being the one to chicken out of a handshake.

Magneto clearly had a similar complex, because he didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon either. “We’ve retrieved some information on their operations and projects. Suffice it to say that our worst suspicions have been confirmed. They’re constructing a team of superhumans to ‘protect American interests.’”

Kitty pumped harder. “And what evidence do you have that this team will be a threat to the mutant population?”

Magneto’s eyes flickered to the silver Magen David hanging around her neck, and he finally released her hand. “Miss Pryde. You and I both know the risks of giving power like that to any government, benevolent as it may seem. American interests? American interests would see mutants wiped out.”

“Who’s to say?” asked Kitty. “I’m an American, and so are you. Our interests certainly don’t lie in that.”

“I was a German,” said Magneto. “That stopped nothing.”

They contemplated each other for a few moments.

“Regardless,” Magneto continued finally, “the decision does not rest with you.” He looked up to where Rogue stood in the doorway. “Rogue. Will you stand with your brothers and sisters? Will you help us show these people that we are not to be trifled with?”

Rogue’s eyes flashed in the light, and you didn’t have to be psychic to guess her answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's thing rec is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, whose name I always misspell as Haller. I wonder why.
> 
> Coming up: Magneto! Plotting! Kitty! Illyana! Illyana! Kitty! 
> 
>   
> (credit to @pamelas on tumblr)


End file.
